Those Who Have Crossed with Direct Eyes
by roqueclasique
Summary: Let me be no nearer/In death's dream kingdom/Let me also wear/Such deliberate disguises/Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves/In a field/Behaving as the wind behaves/No nearer--/Not that final meeting/In the twilight kingdom."
1. Chapter 1

**Title**: Those Who Have Crossed with Direct Eyes

**Summary**: "_Let me be no nearer/In death's dream kingdom/Let me also wear/Such deliberate disguises/Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves/In a field/Behaving as the wind behaves/No nearer--/Not that final meeting/In the twilight kingdom._" (Uh, that's not really a summary. But, it paints the right picture, I hope. From T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men").

**Spoilers/Warnings:** This is a COMPLETE AU from the end of Season 3. Anything you know about Season 4, erase it from your head and begin again, all right? But there are spoilers for Season 3.

**For Whom?:** Sweet Charity fic for a_starfish .

**Disclaimer**: Dissed and claimed. I mean, not minesies.

**A/N: **To fairly warn you, this chapter is SHORT and kind of more of a prologue. If you get hot and bothered by cliffhangers, maybe wait a little bit and then read.

:::

Dean used to have these nightmares, from the age of about seven to ten – nightmares in which he would wake up inside his dream and mistake it for reality. Would climb out of bed like any normal morning, would yawn and stretch and turn to wake his brother up and get him ready. Sam would pout and squabble and insist on wearing the same damn Batman t-shirt he wouldn't let go of long enough to wash, and Dean would protest at first and then cave, grumbling like every morning. Then he and Sam would trek out to the kitchen, if they had a kitchen, or they'd hang out in the motel and wait for their dad to get back with breakfast. And then Dean would turn and he would see John's body lying on the floor in a pool of blood, with some sort of terrible creature crouched over him. And the creature would smile, and the smile would grow wider and the teeth would grow longer, and sharper, and the mouth would gape open, and the eyes would slot ink-black and alizarin crimson, and the terrible hunger would roll off in waves and the panic would be blinding – and then Dean would wake up. Would climb out of bed and yawn and stretch and wake up Sam and go to the kitchen and find his father dead on the ground and the monster would come towards him – and then he would "wake up" and cycle through the whole thing again, sometimes six or seven times, 'til he finally awoke for real, gasping and panting and covered in sweat.

But the point is. The point is, each time Dean opened his eyes onto the real world, each time he woke up for true and for real, it was instant and clear and incredible, his knowledge that _this _was reality and _that _had been a dream. It was unmistakable, the clarity of the edges of things, the way his waking body felt so good and so solid, and the relief was sharp and sweet and certain. It seemed unbelievable that his dream-self could have ever thought otherwise, could have been fooled by so many false awakenings, because _this _was the absolute genuine Real. He was awake.

It is this exact feeling that Dean has now, so many (_so many_) years later.

He opens his eyes to a stained motel ceiling, takes three breaths, blinks, takes another breath, and starts to cry.

It startles him, the sounds he makes, and the wetness of the tears, because he's pretty sure he's been crying for so many (_so many_) years, but while at the time it had seemed like the only reality he'd ever known, the memory of it is scrawled in watercolor – bloody, dark, horrific watercolor, but it's just watercolor.

This – this is fuckin' _Sharpie. _

He sits up, and the complete lack of pain makes him cry a little harder, but he does his best to ignore that, wipes roughly at his eyes in an effort to clear the moisture so he can get a better look at his surroundings. The first thing to do is look. Then maybe he'll attempt coherent thought.

It's a motel room, a dingy, badly-decorated motel room, with sickly orange trim and greenish walls, a painting of a beach ball on one wall and a huge bunch of fake begonias nailed haphazardly to the other, two beds lumpy and unmade, a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels pooling on the ground by his feet and the sour smell of unwashed dude filling his nostrils, and it's undoubtedly the most beautiful sight Dean's ever seen.

He takes a deep breath and forces himself under control, takes the emotions screaming for release and pushes them down, and he stops crying almost immediately. He's had a long time to practice walling off parts of his head.

He thinks. He hasn't done this for a while. It's kinda tough.

Okay.

There are things he knows without question, such as: This is a motel room. That is a table. This is an arm and that's a window and that's a hideous painting and that's probably a piss stain and he's not in hell anymore. He's not in hell anymore.

It occurs to him that this could be another fucked-up hallucination created specially for him, but he knows, bone-deep, that it isn't. He is _awake. _This is awake. And alive. He's alive. He knows this.

There are some things, however, that he doesn't know, such as: How did he get out, and where the fuck is Sam?

_Sam._

He hadn't realized he'd even remembered Sam until it hits him, but it's like being smacked with a cement-loader full of bricks, and a thousand memories collide and jostle for place and they're all singing and bright and hurt. He sees Batman t-shirts and mashed-up bananas and rolled eyes and floppy hair and skinny wrists and impossible height and oh god blood pooling from a severed spinal cord and _I'm gonna save you _and pursed lips and rare, glorious, body-shaking laughter, and Dean had forgotten what it felt like to have an emotion other than fear or pain – but whatever this is, it's stronger even than fear and it fills his chest and lungs and heart so tightly that he can't breathe, and he thinks maybe he's going to die again.

He's crying once more, which he stops pretty quickly, but the thought of seeing Sam again bubbles up and stretches out his mouth and then he's laughing, verging on hysteria, and it feels better than crying but it's loud and the sound frightens him so he stops that, too.

"Sam," he says, and his own voice makes him flinch and tremble but he says it again, louder. "Sam. Sammy."

There's no answer, which makes sense, because Dean's alone in the motel room.

Okay. First order of business. Find Sam.

It feels strange, to have a goal, to have free will, so he chooses something else to do, which is to stand. His legs buckle when he pushes himself upwards, and the ground seems farther away than he remembers, but after a moment he steadies himself and takes a step. It's successful, so he takes another one, and another until he's standing in the middle of the room. He turns around slowly.

The room is a mess, strewn with clothes and empty bottles and there's a half-open duffle in the corner that looks vaguely familiar, so he crosses over to it. Inside are guns and knives gleaming metallic and sharp and he sits down fast on the floor and throws up onto the carpet.

"Dude," he says out loud when he's finished. He pushes hair back from his forehead and wipes his mouth. "Fuckin'. Come on."

Then, because he'd forgotten that swearing makes him feel better, "Fuck. Motherfucker. Shitass motherfucking cuntsucker cockgrabber slutbag garbagewhore."

He stands again, wobbles for a moment and then steps delicately around the puke. Stops, narrows his eyes at it. He doesn't remember eating, not for – not for a long fucking time, anyway. So what the fuck did he just – ?

He decides he'll think about that later.

He looks at the guns again, swallows down bile and forces himself to reach out, though he stops short of touching anything.

"Sam," he says. "Fuckin' Sam." He clears his throat. "Sam, where the fuck."

He turns around, feels fear again, and helplessness, which pisses him off. His whole body is trembling hard, and won't quit it, but he tries to ignore it and turns to look at the room again. There's another door, and he knows it leads to the bathroom. Sam could be in the bathroom. Please, please, please let Sammy be in the bathroom.

His hand rattles against the doorknob as he turns it, and he curses again, then remembers how Sam always used to say he needed to expand his vocabulary, and god he can't wait for his little brother, to see him and shove him and touch him and to hold onto him.

At first glance, the small room is empty, but then Dean steps in further and turns around and his heart swells with inexpressible blind joy and he starts laughing and crying again and reaches forward because Sam is _right there,_ with his dimples and stupid hair and pointy nose and freakishly broad shoulders and Sam is laughing and crying, too, is reaching out for Dean and Dean _cannot fucking wait._

Then his fingers hit cold glass and he stops, confused, until the proper memory comes back to him. What this is.

A mirror.

He's looking at his own reflection.

Sam is looking back.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Sorry for the delay! I hope the wait was worth it. Also, I know I keep pimping LJ, but there is some beautiful artwork for this story by a_starfish over there, and also some incredible illustrations for "In Restless Dreams I Walked Alone" by animotus, so if you'd like some visuals, I highly recommend it.

Onto the story!

:::

Dean's not sure how much time he loses, standing there looking at himself – at _Sam _– in the mirror, running his fingers over the glass, over his brother's face, trying to remember how to process anything beyond the immediacy of pain.

It's been so long since he's had space to think, and the rooms in his mind that were walled off are now slamming open with a force that leaves him shaking. There are ways, he knows, to go about this – ways to _think things through _and _problem-solve, _and he tries to take steady breaths, tries to calm his head down enough to re-learn how to follow the path of his own thoughts, catch them and follow them to a conclusion rather than trying to read and feel everything all at once.

It's easier, he finds, to speak aloud, even though the sound of his own voice – his brother's voice – makes him cringe at its loudness, echoing off the mildewed beige tiles of the small bathroom.

"I'm in my brother Sam," he says, trying to start at the beginning, but as the sentence leaves his mouth something old and familiar in him raises its head, and his lip curls automatically. It takes a moment to realize he's smiling. It takes another moment to figure out why, and when he does, he snorts an unexpected laugh that has him flinching in surprise.

"Get your mind out of the gutter," Dean tells his reflection, the phrase brimming to the surface from the murky depths of his memory, and even though his voice is all wrong and he's talking too slow, for one second he thinks he may feel like himself. Feels like maybe he can remember what _himself _means.

The thought makes him smile and then frown, and he lets it carry him to a different idea, tries it aloud to the bathroom.

"I am Sam," he says, waits a moment before switching it around to see if it makes more sense. "Sam I am."

And for a moment he thinks he's solved something, because _Sam I am _feels so familiar and right, and he pauses, hopeful, says it again.

"Sam I am."

Green eggs? Why is he thinking about green eggs? And about Sam, real Sam, _little _Sam, pressed up against Dean's side, small fingers turning worn-out pages. Hair wet from a bath, and pajamas with feet. A pillowcase with ducks on it.

Dean exhales and closes his eyes. He'd forgotten memories just – come, like that. Bloom in his mind and blindside him without being asked.

He looks back at his brother in the mirror and tries to purposefully call another memory, tries to compare the little-Sam-in-his-head with the big-Sam-in-his-head with the Sam he's now staring at. This now-Sam is tall, broad-shouldered, well-muscled but too thin, cheekbones too prominent. Dark thumbprints under his eyes, lips bitten down. A scar Dean doesn't think he recognizes, arcing down through Sam's left eyebrow and pulling his eyelid crooked before continuing down his cheek and cutting into the corner of his top lip.

The scar has healed, has been there for a while, is fully a part of his skin. There are new lines on Sam's face, grooves set around his mouth, a furrow in his brow. He's… he's _older. _

Dean rocks back on his heels a little, heartrate picking up at the realization. In Hell it seemed that time had only two facets, _now _and _forever, _and the sudden weight of the present drops on Dean's shoulders like an iron yoke. Time has passed here, in the world, and Dean has been gone while Sam has continued to age. Time is passing, as Dean stands here dumbly in front of the mirror. Every minute that ticks by is another minute that leaves him without his brother, and Dean understands enough to know that the fact that he's in Sam's body can mean nothing good for Sam.

"What'd you do?" Dean asks his reflection, watches his brother's forehead furrow. "Sammy, what'd they do to you?"

Sam stares back at him with impassive eyes.

:::

Dean goes through the motel methodically, looking for clues, for anything that will give him some idea of what's happened, but all he finds are disturbing hints at how Sam's been living his life since Dean – since Dean died.

Dean hasn't started to try and think about that yet, beyond the basic facts: he was dead and in Hell and he's alive now and back in a world he's remembering little by little. And when he reaches forward to pull a sweatshirt off the floor, it's Sam's huge hand he sees, knuckles bruised and striped with cuts.

He holds the sweatshirt to his face, breathes sharp and deep, smells fire, _real _fire, not the sulfur-etched flames that have been burning him up and re-creating him for – he doesn't know how long – for forever, for no time at all. He smells fire, and booze, and old sweat, and underneath it all the indefinable Sam smell he's known since he was just a kid, and his eyes close as he buries his face in the soft material, holding it like maybe if he wishes hard enough it will fill out with his brother's shape and it'll be Sam that Dean will have in his arms.

It stays empty and he puts it back down on the floor where he found it, picks up one of the empty beer bottles from the pile gathered on the floor by the stuffed-full trashcan, looks around at the chaos of the room.

"Sam," he notes unhappily, takes in the half-empty handle of Jack on the night table, the glass sitting ready and waiting beside it. "Come on, dude," he says. "Shit."

He wishes Sam could answer – wishes someone would answer him. He has a sudden, intense desire to speak to another human being, anyone who could look at him and tell him that it's real, that he's real, and he's here, in whatever body.

He wonders if this is temporary, if at any moment he's going to be yanked back down, back to the heat and the screaming and the neverending pain, and his stomach lurches up at the thought, skin goes tight and numb and his heart throws itself frantically against his ribs. The thought of going back is almost unbearable, but there's worse, there's worse, he thinks there could be worse.

Because if – if Sam – if he's in Sam's body, then is Sam – ? Did they – have they switched? Is it Sam now who's being torn apart strip by strip, thought by thought, ripped into nothing from the inside-out? Did Sam _trade _them?

Panic is so close, he knows, trying to break the surface, to explode out of him like a gunshot through an orange rind, but he squeezes his eyes closed, pushes it back down, because _fuck, _he's been through fucking _Hell_ – he can get through this. He'll get Sam, and they'll get through this.

He shakes his head, tries to physically shrug off the terror that's weighing him down, hisses as a bolt of pain spikes through his left shoulder joint. It hurts, feels like someone's lanced him, but it's almost – it's almost welcome. Something he recognizes, something he can get his mind around. It calms him down.

"That's fucked-up," he tells the empty room, and then grins, because it's the least fucked-up thing that's happened to him in – however long he's been dead for. He rolls his shoulders again, and the pain flares up once more, swift and bright and cleansing. It's the pain of a real body, of flesh and blood and hard, human bone, and Dean realizes now that the pain he felt in Hell had nothing to do with any physical form.

The body he's in now, Sam's body, is wearing a button-down shirt, and Dean undoes the buttons slowly, pushes the fabric off the aching shoulder and looks down.

He winces involuntarily. Sam's got another nasty-looking scar, and the part of Dean that knows these things recognizes an old gunshot wound. The scar is older than the one on his face, Dean thinks, is shiny and pink and puckered around the edges, and Dean looks away, remembers his own body and the bullet-wound scars on his shoulder, remembers the look on his Sam's face as he pulled the trigger. Remembers how strange it was to see someone else looking out of Sam's eyes, and he wonders if that's what it looks like now, with Dean behind the mask of Sam's skin.

He shudders at the thought, refastens the buttons of the shirt and tests Sam's range of motion in the joint, isn't surprised to find that it's not very good. Dean will be careful with it, will do his best to protect his brother's body as best he can. It doesn't seem like Sam's been doing a very good job.

A car alarm goes off from somewhere outside, and Dean freezes, heart stopping and then starting again twice as fast. He'd forgotten about _outside, _forgotten that the world wasn't limited to a shitty motel room with the curtains drawn_. _He'd forgotten about cars.

Cars. His car. His _car. _

His throat tight with a furious hope he's almost afraid to acknowledge, he goes to the window beside the door and slowly rolls up the blind, blinking as light floods the room. His eyes take a moment to adjust and then he's looking out on a half-empty parking lot under a bright gray sky, a strip of black highway in the distance and beyond that the rolling yellow of a winter field, shimmering in the weak sunlight like a girl's blond hair.

He can't remember if the world has always been this beautiful.

He presses his face to the cold glass and scans the roofs of the cars, catches a glimpse of black and lets out a ragged breath, pushes away from the window. He hesitates at the door, fear making him pause, but the thought of the Impala drives him forward out of the motel.

Cold air hits him hard and it feels amazing against his skin, smells like exhaust and frozen water and coming snow, and over the distant rumble of cars Dean can hear the twitters and chirps of a few tenacious birds. It's takes his breath away and he stops for a moment, drinks it in, everything – the feeling of freezing pavement under his bare feet, the way his skin contracts into goosebumps at the touch of the wind, the smell of the highway and the enormity of the silvered sky.

He raises his head, searches for the glint of black he'd seen from the window and moves towards it.

The Impala, unlike his brother, is untouched by time, unhurt, and something in Dean's stomach soars and drops simultaneously at the exactness of the image in front of him, at the perfect familiarity of the tail fins and the graceful curve of the roof and the shine of her gorgeous fender.

By the time he's got his hands planted on the freezing metal, he's crying, tears snaking down his neck and soaking the collar of Sam's shirt, and his knees give out as he slides down her side, fingers scrabbling for any part of her he can reach, gripping the rubber of her front wheel. He presses his face into the passenger side door and tries not to remember that his father's been dead for a long time.

By the time he lifts his head, some of his tears have frozen over the Impala's metal hide, and his eyes feel raw, cheeks red and painful from the cold. He wipes his face on his shoulder and stands, looks at the car, gets himself together enough to peer inside.

There's a blanket in the back seat and a cheeseburger wrapper balled up on the dashboard, but besides that it's empty, no clues.

Dean knows he needs a key if he wants to open her up, search thoroughly and crack the truck, so he steps away with a terrified reluctance, irrationally worried that if he turns his back the Impala will disappear and the only familiar face will be gone from him.

He realizes that he left the door to his motel room wide open, realizes that he ran outside into the freezing cold with no shoes, no coat, and his toes and fingers are numb and red.

"Fuckin' idiot, Winchester," Dean tells himself. Being a few hours out from Hell doesn't excuse the fact that he left the room unprotected, and worse, this is Sam's body, and if Dean does something to hurt it before he gets Sam back, he's not going to be able to forgive himself.

He goes back into the motel and shuts the door, does a double-take as he walks across the threshold. There should be salt – he thinks there should be salt. But there's no evidence of anything like that, and he frowns.

"Droppin' the ball, Sammy?" he asks, and he thinks that's kind of a funny sentence. The ball. Dropping. Ha.

Dean stands in the middle of the room for a moment, shivering as his cold body readjusts to the warmth, then starts his hunt for the Impala's keys.

The nightstand is fruitless, offers nothing but the motel's bible and Sam's Jack, and Dean curses in annoyance, tries to remember where else someone might keep keys.

There's a pair of jeans on the floor by the bed, crumpled next to a t-shirt, and Dean looks at them for a moment and then stoops to pick them up, Sam's bad shoulder protesting a little as he reaches forward.

The keys are in the pocket.

So is Sam's cellphone.

Dean stares at it for a moment, heart beating wildly, and then flips it open, stares at the glowing screen and the funny little buttons. This is easy. He totally knows how to work this.

He presses a few buttons, finds himself at a calculator and then an alarm clock, jumps as he inadvertently triggers a shrill, flutelike ringtone, snaps the phone shut. Opens it again, cautiously.

The next button he presses takes him to Sam's contacts list, and he runs down it, past names he doesn't remember – Adam, Alida, Bart – wonders hopefully if maybe Sam's made some new friends.

Suddenly he stops, stares, throat tightening.

Bobby.

He's pressing _call _before he thinks it through, and he doesn't have time to prepare himself before the phone rings and stops and there's a gruff, "Hello?"

Dean clears his throat, tries to speak, but apparently Hell turned him into a big fuckin' girl, because his eyes are filling with tears again and he's too choked-up to get a word out.

"Hello?" Bobby repeats, sounding annoyed, and Dean swallows rapidly, clears his throat again.

"Bobby?" he says. "Hi."

"Who is this," Bobby demands.

Dean's not entirely sure how to answer that, but it's so good, _so good _hearing Bobby's voice that he lets out a hoarse, frayed laugh.

"Hey, Bobby," he says stupidly. "Hey, man."

He hears Bobby take a sharp breath, and then there's a long silence. Bobby swallows thickly on the other end of the line.

"Sam?"

"Sam," Dean says, grinning like an idiot, blinking rapidly and trying to remember the rules of conversation. "I don't – not – I'm kind of – yes? Yeah. Sam. Sam Winchester."

There's another silence, and Bobby asks, "Are you drunk?"

"No!" Dean says, offended on Sam's behalf. "Fuck."

"Sam," Bobby growls. "Where the hell are you?"

Dean blinks. That's a great question. He wishes he'd thought of it.

"I'm not sure."

"Are you hurt?"

"I don't think so."

"What's going on, Sam?" Bobby asks, concern cutting through the steel of his voice. "Why are you calling me?"

"I miss you," Dean says, and winces in embarrassment, because he _knows _that was the wrong thing to say.

Bobby snorts a little, but when he speaks his voice is low, urgent. "Sam, are you all right?"

Dean knows the answer to this question. "No," he says with conviction. "No."

There's a pause. "Do – are you in trouble?"

"Yes."

"Can you tell me why?"

"I don't know," Dean says, the effort of conversation wearing him out, and he sinks down onto the bed, clutches the phone to his ear with both hands and closes his eyes. He wants Bobby here, in front of him, not echoing down the plastic phone line.

"Sam," Bobby says. "You can't just call me and – you've gotta throw me a bone here, all right? Give me something."

"It's Dean," Dean says, which is true. "It's about Dean."

"What about Dean?" Bobby's voice is suddenly sharp.

"Just…" Dean takes a deep breath. "Can you come?"

"Sam, _where are you_?"

Dean looks around for the answer, eyes lighting on a piece of paper tacked above the phone on the night table. He squints at it. It's the standard list of rules regarding check-out and wake-up calls and television, but it's got a name on top, and a location.

"Starlight Motel," he reads. "Concord, Massachusetts."

"Massachusetts," Bobby repeats. "Can you drive?"

"I don't know." He doesn't think so. Not yet. "I don't think so."

"Jesus," Bobby says, and Dean winces as the phone line crackles. He switches it to his other ear. "Sam, you really expect me to get in my truck and haul ass to Massachusetts?"

"Yes," Dean says desperately. "Please."

There's a long, heavy silence, and Dean realizes he's whispering, "Please, please," like some kind of mantra.

Bobby sighs, huge and sad and complicated. "You got the address?"

Dean reads it to him off the list of rules and regulations, looks at the front of the door and gives him the room number.

"Sam, it's gonna take me at least two days to get there, you know that, right? If you're in trouble in Massachusetts, I can give you the number of a guy who –"

"No," Dean says, panicked, "no, Bobby, just – come." It's unfair, he knows, to ask this of the man, but he doesn't know what else to do, and if he can just see Bobby he'll explain everything and they'll figure it out together.

"All right," Bobby says quietly. "I'll come. I'll be there late tomorrow night or the next morning, okay?"

"Yeah," Dean says. "Bobby, thank you."

"You just sit tight," Bobby says, asks again, "You're not hurt?"

"No."

"Not in any immediate danger?"

"I hope not."

"Fine, then. Sit tight."

"I'm sitting," Dean says, laughs a little. "Not goin' anywhere."

"Okay." Dean can picture Bobby nodding. "I'll see you soon."

"See you soon," Dean agrees, relief flooding through him like a cool tonic.

The line goes dead.

Dean lets the phone drop into his lap, already missing the sound of a familiar voice.

He stands, car keys in hand, and remembers to put on shoes and one of Sam's hoodies before going back outside. It's already easier to think, to plan (though he's clearly gotta work on his social skills), and he can feel his mind settling into itself, like a sea calming after the moon's been pushed out of orbit. The tides evening out.

Dean's hands are still shaking, haven't stopped yet, and the tremor is so bad that it's difficult to get the key in the door to lock it. It takes all his concentration, and so the door's closed behind him before he realizes there's someone standing just a few feet away, staring at him.

He freezes, muscles seizing with alarm, mouth dry, the girl's eyes fixed on him, steady and focused.

She's young, no older than seventeen, short and thin in a rose-colored fleece and tight jeans, brown suede boots. Blonde pigtails, too much lip gloss. Dean tries not to hyperventilate from fear.

She stares at him for a long moment, expression unreadable, and Dean wonders if his body remembers how to fight, because his mind sure as hell doesn't. He wants to move away but can't, trapped by her gaze, the intensity of her focus.

"Do you need anything?" she asks finally, and Dean's body flinches at her voice.

"What?" he manages.

"Towels?" she asks. "Uh, sheets? Soap?"

She works here. He relaxes a fraction, shakes his head.

"Nothing?" she presses. "Need the mini-bar re-stocked?"

"No," Dean says. He tries a smile, and it must work, because she nods.

"'Kay, well, just let us know," she says, smiles back, and he can't believe how fucking terrified he was a moment ago, because she's just a ditzy kid.

"Thank you," Dean says, remembering his manners, and she smiles again, turns to go.

He's a fuckin' coward, shaking in his boots over some five-foot-three high schooler, but still, his heart jumps a little as she turns to look at him over her shoulder. Her expression has changed – it's hungry, almost, fierce and hungry and a little wild, and Dean remembers suddenly that he's a good-looking guy and hundreds of women have looked at him like that before.

He can't help but shiver, though, as he edges into the parking lot.

He doesn't want to turn his back, for some reason.

_Bobby,_ he thinks. Drive fast, man.

Drive really fuckin' fast.


	3. Chapter 3

Dean's hands are starting to bother him. They won't stop shaking, and when he tries to concentrate and calm them down the tremors only get worse. It makes it difficult, especially with the numbing cold, to get the key into the Impala's trunk and open her up. He manages eventually, but it's a good five minutes of attempts before the lock clicks and the trunk pops.

Dean knows, abstractly, that he's about to find a lot of weapons. He remembers this. But it still doesn't prepare him for the sight, for the gleaming, deadly arsenal under the trunk's false bottom.

He gags a little and takes a few staggering steps back, slams into the car parked behind him and sees stars for a second as his head and Sam's bad shoulder take the full brunt of the force. But the pain is preferable to putting his hands on all those guns and knives.

He can't remember Hell, not exactly, not like he can remember what he did five minutes ago or even like he can remember his life before. His memories aren't weak, it's just that his brain – fully human again, trapped by neural pathways and cerebral fluid – doesn't have the capability to remember. He knows there was pain. An ocean of it, unceasing, both physical and mental. But _physical _and _mental _mean very little in a place where one has no physical form or brain, so the pain remains abstract in his human memory.

He remembers guns, though. And knives. Knows that somehow, everything familiar to him was warped and perverted into a new form of torture, knows that sometimes it was people – Sam, his mother, his father, Cassie, anyone – and sometimes it was objects. His Beretta. His Bowie. The shotgun in the trunk right now.

He's pretty sure it was him sometimes, wielding those weapons. He's pretty sure that the screaming in his head wasn't just his own.

"Fuck," Dean says, heaves a deep breath, speaks aloud to the deserted, freezing parking lot. "They're just _guns._" He pauses. "You _like _guns."

He remembers how it felt to like guns. Remembers how he didn't feel comfortable without the cool, heavy weight tucked in the back of his jeans, remembers how good it was to pull the trigger and hit the target dead-on.

He moves towards the trunk, looks in once more, tries to see the weapons not as weapons but as – as friends, as familiar relics from his first life. That's not just a sawed-off shotgun – that's the sawed-off Dean used to blast a ghoul full of rocksalt before it could take Sam's head off. That Beretta kept a Black Dog from chewing Sam in half. The silver knife stopped a werewolf from ripping John's heart out.

He leans forward over the knife, tentative, gears up his courage and skims a trembling finger over the wooden hilt and then finally to the flat of the sharp silver blade – but yanks his hand back as it touches the cold metal, because it feels – it feels _wrong, _somehow, almost painful, as if his fingertips will be scorched off if he leaves them there for too long.

Maybe he's not ready for this.

Keeping his hands close to his body, he scans the trunk once more, looks for anything that could be a clue, but it's tidy, well-organized in a way that nothing of Sam's has been yet, and he can't see anything but rows of gleaming weapons.

He closes the trunk.

He means to search the rest of the car, but it's pretty empty and the Impala's front seat welcomes him as soon as he opens the door, and for a while Dean just sits there, forehead on the wheel, breathing the familiar smell of her, of leather and old blood and exhaust and the entirety of his first life. He was born in this car. He lived in this car. His dead body has probably been in this car, and –

He jerks his head up suddenly, because _his body. _

Where is his body?

Was he burned? Buried? Is he still rotting or has it been long enough that he's mostly bones?

Suddenly he can picture himself, hazily, like peering through smudged glass, but he remembers what he looked like, what he _felt _like. He hasn't thought of it, really, till now, but – he _misses _himself. Misses his shorter legs, narrower shoulders, close-cropped hair. Misses the constant ache in his lower back. The scar on his torso that pulled a little when he twists. And – well, Sammy's a good-lookin' kid, but – he misses his own face.

If he finds Sam – _when _he finds Sam – when he gets Sam back – where will Dean go?

"Stuck with the ugly mug, but I don't get the brains to go along with it?" he mutters at Sam in the mirror. "Life's a bitch."

Well, maybe. Death is worse.

:::

After the cold air, the motel is stifling warm, and smelly. Dean wrinkles his nose, spies the vomit still in a pile on the floor in front of Sam's weapons duffel, and he goes into the bathroom, wets a towel and attempts to clean it. He's pretty sure he didn't do too much cleaning in his first life, because this _definitely _doesn't come naturally, but he manages to get most of it off the rug.

The rest of the room is beyond him, too disastrous to even attempt.

"How long've you been here, Sam?" Dean asks, casts his eyes helplessly around for an answer.

Then remembers – he can find out, easily. He can ask the – the desk-person. There are desk-people, there are always desk-people. He can ask how long Sam – he – has been staying there, can ask if he's gone out a lot, what time he comes in, what time he leaves at night.

The prospect of speaking to another human scares the shit out of him. Especially since he knows he's going to have to lie, and he's barely together enough to say "Hello," much less spin the kind of stories that would have come easy to him, before.

He rubs a hand up the back of his neck, tugs a little on Sam's long hair. Fuck. _Fuck. _

He's gotta do it. If he wants answers, he's gotta do it. And he doesn't want to be a blabbering mess when Bobby gets here, because Bobby's not the patient type, and if Dean's incoherent and can't explain himself, there's no way Bobby'll be able to help him. Better to practice on someone else, first, practice talking like a normal person. And not someone who just spent – however long – getting his non-physical skin ripped off his body and stuffed down his non-physical throat.

Dean chokes a little, unprepared for that thought and the memory that comes with it, slams the doors in his brain that lead to shit like that. Because – really not the time. He can deal with this later, or _not _deal with it, since he'd be perfectly happy not remembering anything – but right now he's got to focus on finding Sam, and not on conjuring up images of blood and fire and entrails and –

"Stop it," Dean growls to the empty air, and he's shaking again, full body this time and not just his hands. It terrifies him, the lack of control he has over his mind, over his body, and for a moment he can feel himself spiraling out of control, panic rising up like a tide and threatening to drown him completely – but he pushes it away, takes a deep, deep breath and grips the wall, counts to fifty.

He's okay. Fuck, he's okay.

"Desk-person," Dean says, to direct himself towards his next move. "Talk to the desk-person."

There's a better word, he knows, but it eludes him.

He goes back into the bathroom to make sure he doesn't look as freaked-out and fucked-up as he feels, and Sam looks exhausted and a little sick, but not like he's got his fresh-out-of-Hell brother trapped inside, which Dean thinks is a big plus.

He straightens his shirt, palms his hair in an attempt to flatten it, and puts Sam's wallet and keys in his coat pocket. He's good. He's good, right?

Cellphone. He pockets that, too.

He's getting better at this. He's totally _got _this, this being-alive-and-human bullshit.

He snorts.

"Way to go, Winchester," Dean says. "You even tied your shoes_._" He pauses, confused. "Wait, no you fucking didn't. You _jackass._"

He ties his shoes.

Baby steps. Baby steps.

:::

He finds the clerk – clerk, _that's _the word – by pure instinct, following the row of rooms to the office at the end of the parking lot.

A bell jingles as he opens the door, and he jumps, spooked, as the clerk raises an eyebrow.

"Twitchy," the guy comments, laying down his newspaper. He's young, wearing a faded tie-dyed shirt, messy blond hair.

"Ha," Dean manages, resists the urge to run back to his room. "Yeah."

"What's up?" the clerk asks, looks him up and down. "You look better, man, you feelin' better?"

"Better?" Dean repeats.

"Yeah, you look more, y'know…" he considers. "Rested."

"Huh," Dean says.

"Guess maybe I was wrong about the booze."

"Huh? Uh – what – did you say?"

The clerk appraises him. "You remember anything about that night, dude?"

Dean risks a head-shake. _What _night?

The clerk laughs. "Not surprised. Well, I told you to lay off or you were gonna make yourself even sicker – but it looks like the worst of it's passed. You been puking?"

Dean has, in fact, been puking. "No?"

"Glad to hear it. Got a little worried when I didn't see you leave the room last night."

Sam had been sick? Sam usually left the room?

"Uh, yeah," Dean says. Okay, buddy, he thinks at himself. How 'bout you try a two-syllable word, huh? "Hey," he says, gears himself up. "Got a question."

"Shoot."

"Can you – I'm trying to – count my money – and I can't remember – how many nights – I've slept…" Fuck, why is this so hard? He talks okay to himself. He's just gonna ask outright. "Can you tell me how long I've been here?"

"Sure," the clerk says, swivels his chair towards the computer, taps at the keyboard and squints. "Let's see, it's January 19thth… you got here January 10th… so that's nine days, dude."

Dean blinks. January 19th.

"Uh," he says, "can I..?

The guy turns the screen towards him, and he searches for the date, eyes catching in the upper righthand corner.

1:25 PM, January 19th, 2011.

He sucks in a breath.

"Lost track of time?" the clerk asks, and Dean nods numbly, trying to process. Three years. It's been three fucking years.

"Thanks," Dean says, puts a hand on the desk to steady himself.

"Woah," the clerk says, and Dean follows his gaze. His hand is rattling against the desk, shaking violently, and he snatches it back.

"Where do I usually go?" Dean asks, too-loud, too-obvious, but fuck it, he doesn't give a shit if this guy thinks he's crazy. He just needs to find his brother. "When I leave. Where do I go?"

"You been blacking out a lot?" the clerk asks, a note of concern. "'Cause, dude, that and the shaking hands makes me think maybe you oughta get yourself into some kinda treatment."

My hands are shaking 'cause I've been in Hell, moron, Dean wants to say, but he's not that stupid. God, he'd forgotten how fuckin' nosy people can be.

"Yeah," he says, forces a rueful laugh. "I lost my wallet, and – I'm trying to re—to re-draw – to re-trace my steps."

"Shit," the clerk says, looks sympathetic. "Well, uh – you checked the bar?"

"The bar," Dean says slowly, doesn't wanna ask which one, but wants to know.

"Yeah, you've been mostly goin' to O'Gara's down the street, right?"

"Right," Dean says. He's remembering, now, that if you keep quiet long enough, people'll just hand you information. "I, no, yeah, I'll check."

"You lose it in the daytime or the nighttime? 'Cause I dunno what all you've been doin' during the day."

"Night," Dean says, stumbles a step back. "Thank you, goodbye."

"Good luck," the clerk calls at his retreating back.

That went well, Dean thinks.

Real well.

:::

He can see the light-up O'Gara's sign from where he's standing, and he's pretty sure he can't drive, not yet, so he starts towards it on foot, along the side of the highway.

He has to stop halfway, crouch down in the weeds and take a couple deep breaths, because the cars rushing by are really not doing anything to further his peace of mind, even though he's walking at least seven feet from the road.

It feels good, though, apart from the roaring engines and screaming wind – feels good to walk in the long grass, crunchy with frost and smacking against his jeans as he trudges through. The world feels so huge and so small at once – he knows how far it extends, but everything seems closed in to the ten feet surrounding him, and to the sky laying low and white above him. The cold air makes his eyes sting, but it's a good sting, and he can feel his nose and cheeks numbing, and that's good too. Sam's bad shoulder aches steadily, and Dean wonders what happened, hates picturing Sam that hurt without him there. But in three years – a lot can happen in three years.

O'Gara's isn't crowded, and at this time of day it's more of a restaurant than a bar, the smell of food thick in the air, and Dean's stomach rumbles, surprising him.

He'd forgotten about food – he should eat some, though, should feed Sam, and it feels weird to think of it in those terms, but he can't accept this body as his own, keeps thinking of it as separate from him. All he's got of his brother, right now.

He checks his wallet, finds a few twenties. That's enough, right?

"You need a table?" a waitress asks, and Dean stares at her, because she's _beautiful, _just beautiful, smooth dark skin and curly hair pulled back from her face, sharp cheekbones, tiny bowtie mouth, curvy body wrapped in a short red apron.

_Women. _Holy christ, _women. _Yes, yes.

She clears her throat, and he realizes he's been staring, hasn't said anything, but she doesn't seem to mind, is half-smiling.

"A table," he agrees. "Please, thank-you."

She looks at him strangely, but leads him to a booth in a corner, lays a menu down in front of him.

"Can I get you something to drink?" she asks, and her eyes are steady on him, searching.

"Water," he says. "Please, thank-you."

"You can say thank-you after I bring the water," she says, but she says it gently, and he's grateful for the reminder, because _right. _First please. Then thank-you.

He looks at the menu, but can't understand it. He understands the words, all right, but can't place them to any food he remembers eating, there's too much, too many. He takes a deep breath, tries to read the items one at a time, match them to their pictures, but it's overwhelming and he sets the menu down, leans back and closes his eyes, tries to remember what he used to eat.

"Here you go," the waitress says above him, and he startles so violently that he knocks his head on the back of the booth.

"Woah," she says, eyes going wide, and she moves like she's going to sink down into the booth across from him before she checks herself. "Hey. I'm sorry."

He breathes for a moment, and she stands there staring at him before carefully setting his water glass in front of him.

"You okay?" she asks after a moment. "Shit. I'm sorry."

"I'm fine," he says, tries a smile, tries to remember the word the clerk used. "I'm … I'm twitchy."

"It's all right," she says, and they stand there looking at each other for a moment before she shakes herself, asks, "You know what you'd like to eat?"

Shit. He looks back at the menu, folds his trembling fingers into fists and tries to concentrate.

"What about a cheeseburger?" she suggests. "Cheeseburger and fries?"

That sounds right, he thinks. Familiar.

"Yes," he says. "Please." He'll wait to say thank-you.

She leans down to take the menu, gives him one last, strange look over her shoulder as she disappears into the kitchen, and suddenly he's got chills again.

He's fucking crazy. He's just being paranoid. But for a moment he thinks she had the same look in her eye as the girl outside his room – hungry, longing. Darker than lust. Nothing sexual about it. Just – hunger.

"No," he tells himself, "no, no. No, no. Just a waitress. Just a girl. A pretty girl." He hesitates, tries some different words. "A hot chick."

He wonders when he'll feel human enough to have sex, because he's really looking forward to that, but it's kind of unfathomable at the moment. For one thing – he's Sam. And – he thinks that might be weird. For another thing – the idea of being – like _that _– with another person, when he can barely string two words together, is a little bit beyond his imagining, at the moment. But if he finds Sam – if he gets his body back – if –

He can't think that far ahead, because it's just a gaping void of questions he doesn't know how to answer. It scares him.

Fucking _everything _scares him.

He concentrates on what _doesn't _scare him – the wooden table. The dim lights in their green glass shades. The hum of conversation, from somewhere around him. His water.

Dean takes a sip, and it feels so strange, to have something slide down his throat and into his belly. He can feel the coldness of the ice. It's wonderful.

Dean drinks his water and breathes and waits for the waitress to come back, which she does, eventually, carrying a huge platter of steaming food.

"Here you go," she says, sets it down in front of him, and he stares.

"Here's some ketchup for the fries," she adds, tugs it out of her apron and sets it in front of him.

The fries are the long golden things. The cheeseburger is the huge fuckin' lump.

Of meat.

He presses a shaking hand to his mouth, suddenly sick, the smell wafting up and down his throat, and this really isn't the time to recognize the smell of his own flesh roasting, but –

"Something wrong?" the waitress asks.

"Vegetarian," he croaks, the word coming out of nowhere. "I'm a vegetarian."

"Are you _serious_?" she gapes, then looks surprised at herself. "Jesus, sorry – you just – "

"Have you seen me before?" Dean asks, urgent, because if Sam's been ordering cheeseburgers here, then she must –

but she's shaking her head.

"No – you just don't strike me as a vegetarian." She takes the plate away.

"I'll pay for – something else –"

"It's fine," she says. "I'll bring you a grilled cheese." She looks doubtful. "Unless – you're a vegan, too?"

"Vegan?"

"Like – do you eat any animal products at all?"

"I just –" he's not sure how to phrase this nicely. "No flesh."

She blanches, looks for a moment like she's going to be sick. Dean can appreciate the sentiment. "Okay. So cheese is fine, I guess."

"No flesh," he repeats, feels like an idiot, but he's _hungry. _It's a new feeling and he doesn't like it.

"Right."

The grilled cheese, as it turns out, is fucking _incredible, _and the french fries are _unbelievable, _and Dean remembers that he fucking loves food. This is like, the most fun he's had – well, he's been in Hell, so fun's been in short supply, lately – but, it's definitely the best thing that's happened to him since he woke up this morning in his brother's body.

"That's good?" the waitress asks, coming over to refresh his glass, grinning down at him it what looks like real pleasure.

He nods up at her with wide eyes, mouth stuffed so full he can barely chew. He thinks the word _manners, _and is pretty sure he doesn't have any at the moment.

She doesn't leave quite yet, just stares at him intently, and _fuck, _there it is again, that glint in her dark eyes that has him choking a little and trying to swallow. He wishes she'd stop _looking _at him.

She backs away, then, but doesn't take her eyes off of him, and he's fucking paranoid and insane and this is all in his head, but he's beginning to remember why he liked being armed at all times. Because the world is dangerous. Everyone's a monster, humans and vampires and werewolves alike.

The thought doesn't stop him from enjoying the rest of his sandwich and fries, though, and even though burping scares him so he almost falls of the bench, it feels _good, _and he feels sleepy, even though he's only been awake for what – maybe six hours. He thinks it was early morning when he woke. So seven, at the most.

He's getting the hang of this time thing.

The waitress brings him his check, and he stares at it and at the bills in his wallet, trying to figure out how to make them work together.

Finally he just puts down a twenty and tells her to keep the change, because he knows that $6.50 is less than $20 and he remembers that he's supposed to tip.

"Do you need anything else?" she asks him, and something in her tone puts him on his guard, like she's asking about more than his food or the check.

"No, thank you."

"You're okay?" she presses, steps just a little too close, and Dean scoots back on the bench.

"Fine," he says, fear rising in his stomach, "fine, I'm fine, I'm good, thank you, thank you."

She steps back, smoothes her apron. Smiles. "Come again, okay?"

"Yeah," Dean says. Heck no.

But before he goes, he swallows his pride and steps up to the bar, asks the bartender, "You seen me before?"

"Uh, yeah?" the bartender says, smirks a little. "Every night?"

"Did I – did I talk to you?"

"What is – what are you –"

"Been blacking out," Dean says. "Did I talk to you?"

"No – you didn't talk to anyone. Kinda surprised you're talking to me now, actually."

"No one? Ever?"

"No, dude, no one, ever. Except – except the first night you were talking to Gretchen."

"Gretchen."

"Yeah, Gretchen Kiesling. Talking about her shop."

"Her shop. What's her shop?"

"Kiesling's Spices and Herbs. Sells like, organic basil or some shit. Her husband owns Kiesling farms."

"Thank you," Dean says, and he can feel his waitress staring at him all the way to the door. It's a relief when he steps outside, back into the frigid air, but as he walks away, he can swear he sees her at the window, watching.

It's all in his head.

It's got to be.

:::

It's 3:45 PM when he gets back to the motel, and he means to go to Kiesling's store. He really does.

But he lies down, just for a moment, just because he's tired, and he doesn't know what to do with _tired _except lie down and wait for it to go away. The world is exhausting, and he hasn't slept for – shit, hasn't slept for three years. And who knows how long it's been for Sam. His body feels weary, feels exhausted, and if the dark circles under his eyes are any indicator, it's been a while since he's gotten a good night's sleep.

So Dean lies down. Just for a minute. Just for a moment.

He closes his eyes.

:::

Dean wakes to the shrill sound of his phone, and he fumbles it out of Sam's pocket, squints at it.

11:20.

He peers at the windows, confused, because it's bright outside, sunny, even, and how can it be 11:20 if –

He looks again.

A.M.

He's been asleep for –

Hours. Fucking _hours _have gone by, and he's been unconscious, not doing shit to find Sam, not thinking, just lying there, no salt around the door, nothing but –

Wait, why is the phone ringing?

He looks again, looks at the name flashing under the time.

_Bobby._

Shit, shit, shit.

He fumbles the phone to his ear, snaps it open just in time.

"Hello," he says, "Bobby?"

"What room are you?"

His voice takes Dean's words away. "I—I don't—"

There's a knock on his door.

"This your room?"

"Yeah," Dean says, heart stuttering in his chest as he pushes himself up off the bed, joy and fear and a desperate, desperate hope rising in his chest as he stumbles towards the door, because he hasn't been sure, until this moment, whether or not he's really _here _– but if Bobby can see him and touch him and speak to him, if Bobby's here, then Dean is here, and Sam must be here, and the world is still solid and real and true.

"Bobby Singer," he says, just to say it, "fuck, yes, Bobby Singer."

He opens the door.

Bobby, like the Impala, is picture-perfect, unchanged, same trucker-hat and too-thick beard, same ratty flannel shirt. He's standing diagonal to the door, keeping one eye on the parking lot, and when he sees Dean he juts his chin out a little so he can stare at him out from under his hat.

Dean can't move, can't speak, doesn't know what to do first, if he should talk to him or if he can hug him or shake his hand and he feels his knees start to give way beneath him, so he reaches out a hand, to grab Bobby or to grab the doorframe, anything to give himself a little support –

And Bobby steps swiftly into the room in one terrifying movement and slams the door and raises a handgun at Dean's head.

"No," Dean says, can't remember how to say anything else, how to explain himself. "No, Bobby, no, no."

"Drink," Bobby says, tosses something at Dean, and he catches it, pure reflex, stares at it.

A bottle. A flat bottle. A flask.

"Drink," Bobby repeats, and Dean stares, trying to remember, because this is familiar, but Bobby's got a gun on him and his hands are shaking and he doesn't know what's going on and he can't think.

"Don't make me shoot you in the other shoulder," Bobby says, and Dean gapes, because _what?_ "If you're carrying right now, I need to know. Drink."

Dean twists the cap. He drinks.

At first it's okay, but then – then it's _fire, _blazing down his throat and searing his flesh, makes him cough and sputter and _god, _what _is _this, what is this?

"Okay," Bobby says, cocks the trigger. "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.

Either you say the magic words, or I shoot you."

Magic words – Dean barely has any words at all, forget _magic._

"Bobby," Dean croaks through the steam in his throat, and he has nothing to offer except, "it's not Sam – it's – I'm Dean. I'm in – Bobby, I'm in Sam. You gotta – you have to believe me – fuck, I don't fucking –"

"What was the name of the turtle Sam brought home as a pet in third grade?" Bobby barks, and Dean stares at him, has no idea why this is relevant – but he knows the answer.

"Alfred C. Hardshell the fourth," Dean says, and seriously, he can remember that shit but doesn't know how to order a grilled cheese?

Bobby keeps the gun trained on his head, but Dean can see his expression waver from hard to shocked to hopeful and back to hard.

"What was your Dad's secret password when you were thirteen in Bamidji?"

Dean closes his eyes a little at the mention of his father, but he says, "Sail boat shoo-fly."

Bobby swallows. "What do you – what does _Dean _have tattooed on his inner thigh, and why?"

What? No one is supposed to know about that, goddammit, Sammy. But –

"It's a daisy," Dean says, winces a little at the memory. "'Cause of Daisy Parker. I was fifteen. We uh – she was – it was the first time."

Bobby lowers the gun slowly, mouth dropping with his arm, and he draws in a hitched breath.

"Dean?" he says, like it's the best prayer he knows.

"Yeah," Dean says, and all of a sudden he's got Bobby's arms wrapped around him, solid and certain, and his face is pressed against Bobby's flannel-covered shoulder, and he's crying like a fucking second-grader, _again, _with snot and everything, and Bobby's saying, "Shit, jesus fucking christ, he did it, he did it, the fucking idiot, he did it."

Dean wants to ask, Did _what? _He wants to sit Bobby down and pick his brain and ask him if he's still got his junkyard and if he's doing okay and when the last time he saw Sam was and he wants to find out everything Bobby knows about his brother and Hell and about these lost three years.

But…

maybe he's gonna cry a little more, first.


	4. Chapter 4

Dean's got a strong enough grasp on time now that he knows two minutes is about the limit that one man is allowed to spend crying in another man's arms (though he's not sure where those rules come from), so after about two minutes he pulls away from Bobby and fists his hand in his sleeve, drags it across his eyes and sucks in a few shuddering breaths.

"Sorry," he says thickly, "sorry."

"Don't," Bobby says gruffly, one hand still cuffed around the back of Dean's neck like he's one of Bobby's unruly puppies. "Jesus. Dean. I can't tell you—I can't—" and Dean realizes he's not the only one who's been crying.

"God," Dean says, coughs a wet laugh. "What a fuckin' mess."

"Yeah," Bobby says, looks down at himself ruefully. "So's my damn shirt."

"Sorry."

"It's all right, I got more where this came from."

"Where's Sam?" Dean asks, because he's not quite sure how one segues gracefully between shirts to missing brothers. "What'd he do? How the fuck did he – how did he get me out? Where is he? You said he – you said he was – carrying? What the fuck does that mean? And why did you shoot him? Did you shoot him?"

It's the most he's said since he came back, and it sends him into a coughing fit that has Bobby thwacking his back in alarm, strong palm coming down square in the center of his shoulderblades. The sudden contact scares him so badly that he sucks in a shocked breath and chokes on it, lurches forward trying to get his wind back and ends up on his knees on the floor, Bobby cursing a blue streak above him, hovering uncertain hands towards his face that do nothing but freak Dean out more, enhance the press of claustrophobia and lack of air.

"Get away," Dean gasps, "just," and he scuttles backwards for a moment before the bad shoulder gives out and buckles his arm, sends him thudding onto his back – and just like that the fight goes out of him and he lies flat, knees up, stares at the stained motel ceiling and just breathes.

After a moment he becomes aware that Bobby is on the floor about five feet away from him, sitting on his heels, baseball cap in one hand.

"Fuck," Dean says, pushes himself up and scoots so that he's got his back leaning against one of the beds, clenches his fiercely trembling hands into his armpits and closes his eyes.

"What the hell was that?" Bobby asks without preamble, and Dean can hear the fear in his voice.

Dean shakes his head. "I'm… sorry. I'm not… it's..."

He hears Bobby shift a little, hears the floorboards creak. "You okay?"

He croaks a laugh. "I don't fuckin' know. Probably not."

There's silence and then Bobby says, "Dean, you were –"

"In Hell," Dean finishes, because he needs to say it out loud. His realities are blurring together and he needs to keep them separate, needs to keep himself in this world. He _was _in Hell. He isn't anymore.

"Right. You're allowed to—"

"Is that where Sam is?" Dean asks, opens his eyes. "Is he in Hell? Did he –" his voice cracks, and he clears his throat, tries again. "Did he switch us, Bobby?"

Bobby fits his cap back onto his head, considers Dean from underneath the brim. "I don't know where Sam is."

"What do you know?" Dean demands, hand going to grip Sam's fucked-up shoulder. "Why'd you shoot him?"

"Well, I didn't shoot Sam," Bobby says. "I mean – he wasn't your brother, at the time."

"Bobby," Dean says, frustration and fear building tight inside of him like white noise. "Please, just – don't make me ask questions. Just tell me."

"All right," Bobby says, glances around, wrinkles his nose. "You mind if we have that conversation somewhere that ain't this dump?"

Dean hesitates, and Bobby looks at him.

"Are you okay to go outside?"

"Yes," Dean snaps. "I went – I had grilled cheese. Yesterday. Before I slept."

"Yesterday?" Bobby says at the same time Dean's stomach emits a low, hollow growl.

"I'm hungry," Dean realizes, and it seems strange to need to eat again so soon.

"Tell you what," Bobby says, smiles a little. "I'll buy you breakfast. I passed a place in town that looked quiet, and we'll sit down and I'll tell you everything I know."

"Not O'Gara's," Dean says, thinking of the waitress and the way she stared. "It's not O'Gara's?"

"O'Ga—no, it's called—hell, I don't remember the name, but—"

"Okay," Dean says. "Fine." He hesitates, then says, "Listen… other people – I'm not real good with –" he waves a hand, swallows.

"All right," Bobby says quietly. "I'll do the talking, how's that sound? You just sit there and eat."

Dean nods, and Bobby climbs to his feet, reaches down to pull Dean up, and Dean can't help but flinch away from the quickness of his hand.

"Sorry," Bobby says, backs up a step, and Dean hoists himself to his feet, goes for the door.

"Dean." Bobby's voice is careful. "You need some shoes, and something warmer than just that t-shirt."

"Right," Dean says. He knew that. He would have realized that. He sits to put on his boots and when he stands Bobby hands him Sam's coat.

"Thanks," he says, shrugs carefully into it, Sam's shoulder stiff and uncooperative.

"He usually uses those heat packs," Bobby says as Dean opens the door to a gust of freezing air.

"Huh?"

"Sam. For the shoulder, so it doesn't seize up."

"Oh." Dean rolls it a little, feels the spike of familiar pain and finds himself relaxing into it. "I like it."

He realizes this was the wrong thing to say when Bobby's eyes go wide under the cap.

"I mean—" he tries, but it would take too many words to explain himself, so he amends, "I mean I don't mind. I mean – I'll use them."

Bobby nods, mouth a thin line. He looks out over the parking lot, over the snow-capped cars and icy pavement.

"I've gotta do something, Dean, all right?"

"What?"

"_Christo_," Bobby says, and it feels like someone's shoved a red-hot poker into Dean's brain, blinding pain for one split second and then it's over and Dean is still hissing.

Holy motherfucking shit, he's _hissing._

Dean looks up, readies himself for a bullet to the head – but Bobby is nodding, looks relieved. Dean stares at him, shocked and bewildered.

"What -- what was --?"

"Your eyes," Bobby says. "You remember how demon's eyes go black, when you say -- that word?"

Dean nods. Not fuckin' likely he'd forget that.

"Your eyes stayed the same," Bobby tells him. "You're not a demon."

"No shit," Dean says, annoyed, because wouldn't he know if he was a demon?

"Dean," Bobby says seriously, "you're a soul from Hell, in someone else's body. You're burned by Holy water. The name of God is painful to you. What does that sound like?"

"Demon," Dean admits unhappily, then bites his lip. "But my eyes were—"

"Your eyes were fine. You're – I don't know what you are. But you're not a demon."

"So, don't kill me," Dean says confusedly. "You're not gonna—"

"I'm not gonna kill you, dumbass," Bobby says. "I woulda done it already. I may not know _what _you are, but I know you're you. You answered my questions – Sam's questions. You're the only one coulda answered them, he said."

"Sam—Sam told you he—"

"I'll explain," Bobby says, "but I've been up all night, and I need some coffee first. I need to be sittin' down. You good to drive?"

Dean looks down at his hands, still shaking like someone's put batteries in his fingers and then cranked them to _vibrate_. "Haven't tried yet. I think – no. But – would you –" He digs the Impala's keys out of his jacket pocket and offers them up.

"You want me to drive the Chevy?"

"Yes," Dean says. "I wanna… ride." What a fuckin' dumbass he must sound like.

"Well, shit," Bobby says, plucks the keys from his palm. "Like I'd ever say no to a chance behind her wheel."

Dean grins, and Bobby gives him a gentle nudge, ushers him towards the car, shining black and brilliant under the bright grey sky.

"The hands," Bobby says after Dean's settled himself onto the cold leather of the passenger seat and is smoothing his fingers over her dashboard. "That you, or Sam?"

"What?"

Bobby gestures, and Dean follows his gaze to where his hands rattle against the dash.

"Sam hasn't exactly been on the straight-and-narrow since you –" Bobby starts, swallows. "Been drinking. I didn't think – he goes for weeks without touchin' a drop, didn't seem like it was – I mean, it was bad, but –"

"Oh," Dean says, gets it, finally, what Bobby's asking. "It's – me, I think." He's not sure how he knows, but it's true, and once he realizes it he pauses to see what else he knows. He can feel the weariness of Sam's body as separate from himself, separate from the Dean-in-Sam, and even the sharp ache of Sam's shoulder is separate from Dean. But he can feel that it's Dean's hands, his hands, that are shaking. He doesn't know what this means, that he can feel _Dean _as separate from _Sam's body, _but it gives him chills.

Bobby starts the car, and the disgruntled rumble of the Impala revving her freezing engine to life makes Dean grin unexpectedly. Dean, grinning with Sam's mouth.

Bobby glances over, a smile starting under his beard. "You miss her?"

"Fuck yeah," Dean says. "God, yeah."

There's silence for a moment as Bobby pulls the Impala out of the parking lot, jounces over a bright yellow speedbump and jolts forward out onto the road. Warm air starts blowing through the vents, and Dean leans into it, watches how fast the yellowed fields go by outside his window, how the unbreaking silver of the sky stays in the exact same place. The sun a burning, constant glow behind layers of cloud.

"So," Bobby says after a moment. "Do you remember –"

"Kind of," Dean says. "Yeah." Bobby opens his mouth again and Dean adds quickly, "I can't – talk. About it. I'm not gonna talk about it."

"All right," Bobby says. "If you want—"

"I don't."

Bobby's mouth quirks a little. "Got it."

The road has led them into a residential neighborhood, full of big, old houses with snowblown driveways and lopsided snow-people on the front lawns. Dean stares as they pass a couple of kids bundled into brightly-colored snow gear, spilling out down the steps of their yellow house.

Bobby eases up on the gas and they turn onto a road that leads them to the fringes of a quaint downtown, railroad tracks threaded through the green awnings and shingled rooftops of small businesses. _Concord Teacakes. Debora's Natural Gourmet. _

Bobby pulls into the parking lot of the small train station, kills the engine and turns to Dean.

"You all right?"

"I'm fine," Dean says, doesn't want to admit how overwhelmed he feels. How alive the world seems, quivering with life even with the still whiteness of the snow and the emptiness of the town's narrow streets.

Bobby looks at him for another moment then turns and opens the door, pushes himself out, waits while Dean does the same and then locks the car, heads towards the door to the station.

Inside it's shockingly warm, a snug, booth-filled train-themed café with a bored-looking teenage girl at the counter and an old man half-asleep over his coffee in the back. Classical music plays on the speakers.

"You still serving breakfast?" Bobby asks as the bell over the door jingles weakly.

"Every day 'til three," the girl intones. "You can sit anywhere."

Dean doesn't wait for Bobby to lead, just charges over to a booth in the corner, where he can have his back to the wall and still see everything.

"You guys want coffee?" the girl calls, and the strength of her voice in the quiet café makes Dean flinch back into the padded seat of the booth.

"Yes, please," Bobby calls back, quieter, but it's still loud, and Dean forces himself still.

"I don't want –" Dean tries. "Nothing that's gonna – mess with my head."

"You don't want coffee?" Bobby asks, cocks an eyebrow.

"It's got…" What's that fuckin' word. "Coffee-een. Coffine."

"Caffeine."

"That," Dean agrees. "Don't want it."

"Listen," Bobby says. "Trust me on this one, Dean. You love coffee. You want coffee."

Dean's not sure, but he takes Bobby's word for it and lets the girl pour him a mug full, inhales the hot, slightly bitter steam, and for a moment it's just any other scent – and then it's not. It's _coffee. _

Coffee smells like cracked formica, like sitting at a shitty kitchen table and watching Sam eat cereal. Smells like the curve of his father's back as he hunched over stacks of red-marked newspapers, like the infinite groan of the Impala's engine and the pressing exhaustion of 2 a.m., Sam asleep in the passenger seat, his mouth wide open and his hair a mess. Fist curled under his chin like a child, trusting Dean to drive and drive and drive.

"Dean," Bobby says. "Shit, Dean. Are you—"

"I'm okay," Dean says, wipes the heel of his hand across his cheek. "It's okay. It's just…" he huffs a weak laugh. "I keep remembering."

Bobby blanches, and Dean shakes his head quickly, knows what Bobby thinks. "No, not – not Hell. Just – about before." He cups his hands around the mug, feels how warm it is. "Sorry. But… it's probably gonna… happen again."

Bobby nods, slow. "Okay."

"So don't keep askin' me if… if I'm okay. I'm not. I mean, I keep crying, and shit. I'm not okay. But I am. Okay?"

Bobby half-smiles. "Roger that."

Dean manages to take a sip of the coffee without tearing up again as an older guy comes out from the kitchen and moseys up to their table, tugging on the pen tucked behind his ear. He's got a long, melancholy face and short grey hair, a stained apron wrapped around his spare frame. His nametag says _Greg._

"Hey there," Greg says, smiles down at them, gaze lingering for a moment on Dean's damp face. "How are you guys today?" His voice is pitched low, gentle.

"Good," Bobby says shortly. "We're good."

"You need a couple menus?" he asks.

Bobby glances at Dean. "You guys have eggs and bacon, right?"

"Sure we do."

"That's what I'll have. Throw some toast on there." He leans forward. "Dean?"

"Uh," Dean says, mind going furiously.

"Eggs," Bobby says. "Bacon? Hashbrowns? You like all that stuff."

It's meat. Dean knows it's all gonna be meat and the thought makes him cringe.

"The jacks," Dean says, knows he's getting it wrong, but can't remember the right word. It's on the tip of his tongue. "The flat cakes. Flap cakes. Fuck."

"Flapjacks," Greg supplies, grins suddenly, and it's a kind smile, warm and unexpected. "Pancakes?"

"Yes!" Dean says, can't help but laugh, because, _yes. _Pancakes.

"You want plain? Or chocolate chip?"

"Chocolate chip," Dean says immediately. Chocolate – oh, fuck yes. _That _he remembers.

"Okay," Greg says, glances down at Bobby and hesitates for a moment, looks like he wants to say something else, but then just smiles at Dean again and turns to go.

But not before Dean sees it. The flash of hunger in his eyes. The desperation, seething behind the surface.

"Did you see that?" Dean hisses once the waiter is back in the kitchen. "He knows us. He's watching us." He leans back, can feel his whole body start up the slow quake again, and he yanks his hands away from his coffee mug before he knocks it over.

"Woah," Bobby says, "woah, Dean. Just, take a deep breath, okay?"

"He's watching us," Dean says again, "they're all watching me," and he knows he sounds crazy, but he doesn't know how to say it in a normal way, so he tries again, "everyone is staring, when I come in, when I, when they see me, they look and they—"

"Dean," Bobby says, reaches across the table and clamps a strong hand down around Sam's bad shoulder, sends a jolt of pain through the arm and up Dean's neck that has Dean wincing and gasping.

"Shit," Bobby says, instantly contrite, "sorry, I—"

"No, it's good," Dean says, rolls his shoulder to get the pain back, that white-hot flash that grounds him, settles his head into more familiar paths. He takes a deep breath, forces himself calm. No one's gonna listen to a madman, he knows this.

"I think people are watching me," he says in a steady voice. "Can we – can we please – can we do something –"

"Yeah," Bobby says, "Dean, shh, it's okay. There are things we can do, to make sure. You're safe with me, all right? There's nothing that's gonna hurt you, not right now, not right here. I'm prepared."

Dean nods, lets himself be soothed, watches the violent shiver of his fingers calm to an erratic tremble, twitching against the table. He wonders if they'll ever be still again.

"Okay," Dean says, takes a deep breath through his nose. "Tell me about Sam, now."

Bobby eyes him for a moment, gauging.

"I can tell you're having some trouble – gettin' your words out," Bobby says bluntly. "But you understand me good enough, right?"

"Yeah, I understand you," Dean says, affronted.

"All right," Bobby says, almost chuckles. "I'll tell you what I know then, Dean, but I already said, I don't know where your brother is, or what, precisely, he did to get you out. I haven't… I haven't spoken to him for almost a year, now."

"A year?" Dean repeats, too-loud, and he twitches as his voice hits the air.

"We had some words," Bobby admits, rubs a hand over the back of his neck.

"Is that when you shot him?"

Bobby winces. "No. That was about a year and a half ago. Let me start at the beginning, though, will you?"

Dean nods, takes a swallow of his coffee. "I'm all ears." It's funny how clichés come so easy to him. _All ears. _He snorts suddenly at the image and Bobby eyes him warily. "I'm listening," Dean clarifies, wonders if he got the words wrong. _All ears. _ Heh.

"All right," Bobby says, takes a deep breath, leans forward and speaks quietly, though there's no one around to listen. "After – after you died – Sam stayed with me for a while. He wasn't in a good place – slept all day, had these nightmares, and when he wasn't sleeping he was drinking, or reading every book he could get his hands on. Had to force him to eat. He lost a lot of weight, those first few weeks, and—"

"Okay," Dean says, because this hurts too much, imagining Sam alone after he watched Dean die. He knows too well how it feels, to know that you've failed someone, to know that you have nothing left, that you've fucked it up and can never have it back and _forever _is stretched out in front of you filled with no one but yourself. "What did you do with my body?" he asks instead. "Did you burn me?"

Bobby winces. "No. No, Sam wouldn't – he buried you. He wouldn't say where. Didn't want anyone else goin' after you."

Dean nods, digests that information. He's out there, somewhere, rotting. Rotted. The thought makes him sick.

"Tell me about – after," Dean says, kind of wants to skip anything relating to the fact that he _died._ "Why did he leave?"

"He stayed with me for about four months," Bobby says, and Dean tries to figure out if that's a long time. "After about a month he started coming with me on hunts, but most days he was just plugged into that laptop, or going through my library. He took the Impala out for weekend trips, sometimes, and he'd always come back with new books, new theories." Bobby takes a sip of his coffee, and Dean has a feeling that whatever comes next – it's gonna be worse than hearing about Sam's grief.

"Raising someone from the dead," Bobby says hesitantly. "It's strong magic, Dean. And raising someone out of Hell, when someone else has the contract to their soul…? Well. That's about the strongest stuff there is. And it's… dark. Really dark."

Dean shivers, sees again, unbidden, the image of his body rotting somewhere deep below the earth, skin falling away from his jaw, eyesockets gaping.

"I couldn't…" Bobby shakes his head. "Dean, you know how I – when you died – I've known you since you were a kid, and…"

"You were sad," Dean supplies.

Bobby snorts, but he's blinking rapidly. "Yeah, Dean. I was sad. I was really goddamn sad. But I couldn't get behind the kind of shit Sam was looking to do, not even if I thought it'd bring you back. He was looking at blood magic, at sacrifices, and I'm not saying he was gonna go kill some virgin, but I'm not saying he wasn't reading about it, either. And I caught him… doing some unnatural things. Moving shit with just his eyes. Saw him kill a bird from twenty feet away – raised his hand and it dropped dead. Little stuff, like that."

Dean drops his head into his hands, thinks about how his little brother cried when he stepped on a bird's egg at age ten. How he was silent for a day when they ran over a cat at age twenty-two. How he sliced off Gordon's head with a razor wire without blinking when he was twenty-five.

Sammy.

"I told him I didn't want that in my house," Bobby continues. "I told him – I'm sorry, Dean, but I told him he had to either lose it, or get lost."

"He left," Dean says.

"He left," Bobby confirms. "Still called pretty regularly, every few weeks or so. Didn't talk about what he was doing, what he was finding. But I know he was – he was hunting. Really hunting. Hunters started talking, and honestly, most of the shit they said was good, 'cause he was killing every evil thing he came across and who can argue with that? But some people said some other stuff. About how he was – "calling on ungodly forces," or some such shit like that. I didn't get into it, just told everyone that as far as I knew, Sam Winchester was still on the good side of things. But, you know, Dean – I wondered, same as the rest. People called – they call him The Scourge."

Dean surprises both of them by laughing.

"Sorry," Dean says, "sorry, it's not – funny – but – Sam? _The Scourge?_ He's just – a kid. A geeky kid."

Bobby smiles, too, but it doesn't move to his eyes. "Your brother's a powerfully good hunter, Dean. He went through nests of vampires like I might step on a cluster of ants, blew through half the werewolves in the Midwest, and demons – way people talk, demons started avoiding him. Running from him. That's – not exactly normal."

"Right," Dean says. _Sammy the Scourge. _Jesus.

"Anyway," Bobby says, but is interrupted when Greg appears by their table, slides the plate of pancakes under Dean's nose and then hands Bobby his bacon and eggs.

"You look like an extra syrup kind of guy," the waiter says, plonks an enormous pitcher down in front of Dean, golden maple syrup dripping slowly down the metal side.

"Thank you," Dean says, stares up at Greg, searching his face, and finds himself being stared at right back, bright blue eyes boring into him, like they're looking through Sam's skin to the person coiled underneath.

"You look like my friend," Bobby says suddenly. "My friend Christo."

Dean does everything in his power not to let the pain show on his face, grips the table and tries to breathe through it -- but the guy doesn't even blink, just swings his head around slowly to focus on Bobby. "Yeah?"

"Uh, yeah," Bobby says lamely.

"Can't say I know anyone by that name," Greg says, and turns to look back at Dean. "Enjoy your pancakes," he says, and Dean feels, bizarrely, as if he means it –and it's almost more off-putting than that deep, un-nameable thing burning from behind his pupils. The man turns, then, and Dean watches him go back into the kitchen, clenches his teeth in fear and confusion.

"He seems all right to me," Bobby says as soon as he's out of earshot. "A little intense, maybe, but—"

"He knows me," Dean says, half to himself. "We should go. We need to go."

"Dean," Bobby says, reaches out a slow hand and wraps it loosely around Dean's wrist, doesn't constrain him, just holds him in place. "Listen, kid, I know where you've been, okay? I can't even begin to understand what they did to you, but whatever it was, wasn't nothing' pretty about it. I know that. But I swear, Dean – right now? You're okay right now. I don't know what else to say that's gonna convince you, but you've gotta believe me. If I thought for one second that this wasn't safe, I'd yank you out of here so fast your head would spin. But it's okay. You're okay."

Dean tilts his head back, closes his eyes, and he breathes deep, mouth closed. Nods.

"All right," Bobby says, and Dean feels him release his wrist. "Now, eat your flapcakes."

Dean smiles at that, and lets himself relax a fraction, looks back at Bobby.

Bobby's holding a strip of bacon halfway to his mouth, and Dean knows before it hits his teeth exactly what kind of sound it's going to make, and he's doubling over before he can control himself, bile rising in the back of his throat as he gags, fights to keep his insides where they belong.

"Oh, for the love of – what, Dean?" Bobby says, and it's the simple exasperation in his voice that brings Dean back from the brink. "What is it?"

"You can't," Dean says, shakes his head furiously, can't even look at it. "Bobby, I'm sorry, man, but – no meat, okay? Fuck, please, don't eat that shit in front of me, please please please don't do it."

There's silence, and then, out of the corner of his eye, Dean sees Bobby carefully scoop something from his plate onto his napkin, stand up and head for the trashcan in the corner of the room.

He comes back, sits down.

"That better?" he asks, and Dean swallows, chances a glance at the plate.

Two eggs, two slices of bread.

"Yeah," Dean says. "Thank you."

Bobby pinches the bridge of his nose. "Jesus, Dean. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Dean says, feels a little weak in the aftermath of so much panic all at once. He feels a hysterical laugh bubble up in his chest, and wants to hold it in, but suddenly it's funny, so funny, the fear and revulsion he felt at a strip of _bacon, _it's fuckin' ridiculous, and then he's laughing, imagines what Sam would say if he could see him, frightened of fucking _bacon, _terrified of _the horrible_ _breakfast monster of DOOM, _and Dean drops his face into his hands and laughs and laughs.

After a while he looks up, wipes his streaming eyes.

"I'm done," he says to Bobby. "Keep talking."

Bobby's got his hands folded under his chin, like he's a tried-upon psychiatrist who's been waiting patiently for Dean to finish with his psychotic break, and it almost sets Dean off again – but he presses his smile closed and regards Bobby as seriously as he can.

"I'm okay," he says. "Really. Tell me… you were saying… about _The Scourge._"

Oh, fuck, he's gonna crack again.

"Your brother was practicing voluntary possession," Bobby says abruptly, and all the laughter dries up as quickly as it came.

"It was about a year after you died, that I found out," Bobby continues.

"Voluntary… is that…"

"It's exactly what it sounds like," Bobby nods. "He – that tattoo you boys got – he burned it off himself."

Dean's hand goes automatically to his chest, and he remembers seeing a new scar there. Hadn't remembered what it might cover.

"I don't know the whole story. All I know is what he told me – which is that he was taking in demons, like any ordinary possession, but he was controlling them, not the other way around. Taking them for a ride in his body, is how he put it."

"Why would – did they give him power? Did he have –"

But Bobby is shaking his head. "No – from what he told me, they didn't do anything to him. They were just there."

"Why would he do that?"

Bobby looks straight at him. "Practice."

Dean rocks back, searches for breath, for words. "For me," Dean says. "He knew he was gonna – but you said I'm not a demon."

"You're not." Bobby pauses. "Like I said, Sam and I stopped talking about a year ago. About six months before that, he showed up at my house out of the blue one night, all strung-out, pale as a ghost, wouldn't come inside. So I gave him the usual god-spiked beer – and he wouldn't drink it. That's when he told me what he'd been doing."

"And you…"

"Tore him a new one, is what I did," Bobby said. "What was I supposed to do? He shows up, tells me he's got a goddamn _demon _inside of him, that he's been doing this for a while, now – of course I'm gonna give him a piece of my mind. What he hadn't told me is that this demon – this particular demon was more powerful than what he'd been takin' on before, and he'd come to me for help, because he didn't think he could handle it."

Bobby takes a sip of his coffee, digs a thumb into his temple. "He explained this to me later – after my little rant screwed up his guard and let the demon take control. That's when I shot him – one second he was Sam, all freaked-out and trying to get me to listen, the next second he's coming at me with his Beretta and his eyes are black as ink. That's when I shot him, near blew his shoulder off altogether. It was a near thing for both of us – he came this close to killing me. Probably would have, but Sam – he's strong, your brother, and he managed to rein it in long enough for me to perform an exorcism. We took him to a hospital, after, and they did what they could, but…"

Dean curls a hand over the shoulder, moves it a little, feels the grind of bone-on-bone, the way his hand goes numb. Sam's hand.

"I let him stay on, after that," Bobby says. "Just for a few weeks, 'til he could drive again. He told me he'd been taking in demons for months – he would summon them, accept them into his body, carry them around for a while, then perform a goddamn exorcism on himself. He wouldn't tell me exactly why he was doing it, but I knew it had something to do with you. I was imagining he'd pull you up out of Hell as a demon, then tote you around 'til you finally took over and – " Bobby shakes his head. "I don't know what. But Sam swore that wasn't his plan. Wouldn't tell me what the plan was, but…"

"Sam," Dean says, can't really say much else. "Fuck."

"Anyway," Bobby says heavily, adjusts his hat. "He stopped calling after that, wouldn't answer my calls. I knew he was still at it, despite what had happened, and when I finally did get a hold of him – well, it wasn't exactly a friendly conversation. It was the last I'd heard from him, until three weeks ago."

Dean sits up straight. "Three weeks ago?"

"Yes," Bobby hisses. "Keep your damn voice down."

"Sorry," Dean says, quieter. "But… three weeks is soon…"

"It's recent," Bobby says, is digging in his pocket for something. "He left me a message from a number I didn't recognize, and when I called back it had already been disconnected. But – here, listen for yourself."

Bobby pushes a few buttons in the phone and hands it over to Dean, who practically snatches it out of his hand, so eager for his brother's voice he barely waits for Bobby to hit _talk _before he's pressing the phone to his ear, trying to keep his hands steady.

"—we haven't talked in a while," Sam is saying, and for a moment Dean can't make sense of the words, is too focused on _Sam, _Sam's voice, the uncertainty in his tone, the familiar, sheepish huff of breath – but then he listens. "I just called to say – if you – god, this is going to sound crazy, but – if you meet someone, and they say – they say they're my brother – I need you to ask them three questions. Doesn't matter who you think they are – just ask, okay? Please." There's a ragged intake of breath, and Sam says, "One: Ask him the name of the turtle I brought home as a pet in third grade. The answer is, um," Sam laughs a little. "The answer is Alfred C. Hardshell the fourth. God, no wonder he always called me a geek, huh? I mean… seriously, it's "the fourth" that does it. Anyway, the second question – you gotta ask what Dad's secret password was when Dean was… he was thirteen, I think, and we were in Bamidji. And the answer to that is sail boat shoo-fly. 'Cause apparently Dad was a geek too."

Dean snorts a little. He was _not. _

"The third question," Sam says, "oh man, Dean's gonna – Dean would kill me for this one – but the third question is, what does Dean have tattooed on his inner thigh, and you have to ask why. Mostly 'cause it's funny. The answer is it's a daisy, can you believe it – and it's because Daisy Parker took his virginity when he was fifteen. He told me thirteen, and I believed him for _years, _'til he got drunk one night and…" Sam trails off. "Anyway," he says, and there's a long pause. Dean holds his breath, waits, but Sam just says, all in a rush, "Dean's the only one who can answer those. You gotta do it, Bobby. I'll – bye." And then he hangs up.

Dean sits back, stares at the phone. Bobby reaches over, takes it gently out of his hand.

"Now you know what I know," Bobby says.

Dean stares down at his hands, at Sam's hands, at Sam's knees, feels around inside, hoping, _praying _that he'll find Sam in there with him, that Sam didn't give up his body for Dean's soul – but there's nothing. Dean knows he's the only one there.

"Where the fuck did he go," Dean whispers. "Where the fuck, Sam."

Bobby picks up his fork for the first time, presses the tines into the yellow yolk of the egg, and Dean watches it break, start to run, soak the edge of the toast.

"I don't understand," Dean says. "If I'm not a demon – if –"

"It doesn't make sense," Bobby agrees, chews a slow, thoughtful mouthful. "He musta figured something out in the year we didn't talk. But… I don't know what, Dean."

Dean drags a hand over his face, tries to think, but he feels exhausted, hopeless. Hearing Sam's voice had made him seem that much further away, rather than closer. Made him seem – unreachable. A tinny voice on a crappy speaker.

"You should eat something," Bobby says. "This is a lot to take in, considering you just… considering. Let it sit for a while. Eat your pancakes."

Dean looks down to where they sit on the plate, dotted with chocolate, a pat of butter half-melted in the center.

"You're eatin' for two now," Bobby tries, a lame joke, but Dean smiles a little. It's true. Sam has left his body in Dean's care. The least he can do is feed it pancakes.

He picks up the tin jug of syrup and pours it liberally, likes the way it looks pooling amber on the plate, slow and sweet, and he picks up his fork, circles it around and finally hacks off a bite.

His hands have picked back up, are shaking badly, and it's difficult to bring the fork to his mouth, to aim correctly – but he manages, after a few false starts, to get the pancake into his mouth instead of alongside it – and it's _amazing. _

"Holy shit," he says, and some pancake falls out of his mouth.

"Good?" Bobby asks.

Dean swallows. "Holy shit."

He has the next bite poised halfway to his mouth, anticipating how fucking spectacular it's going to be, when there's a huge, metallic crash from the kitchen, like all the pots fell over at once.

Dean drops his fork, muscles seizing in terror, and even Bobby whirls his head around to look.

There are muffled voices, one of them clearly shouting, and then a woman emerges, white-aproned and dialing a cell phone.

"Oh my god," the teenaged girl says, cranes her neck around to look through the doors of the kitchen. "What happened?"

The woman rolls her eyes, pauses in her dialing. "I think Greg's having a panic attack," she says, quietly, but loud enough that Dean can hear. "I mean, he was fine one minute, then he just – _falls, _straight into the drying dishes. Broke like, half our plates. Starts hollering that he's had a—a stroke or something, said he couldn't control his body – like his body blacked out – I don't know, he's not really making any sense. But he told me to call an ambulance, and even if they are just gonna give him some Valium and tell him to chill out, I'm not gonna say _no, _'cause what if he's right, you know?"

"Oh, god," the girl says. "I had a panic attack once, it was like, the most horrible feeling. I thought I was gonna die. I totally know what he's going through."

Dean thinks he might be on the verge of his very own fuckin' panic attack, and he turns his head to look at Bobby so fast he can _hear _his neck cramp. If Bobby tries to tell him there's nothing to worry about, he's gonna –

But Bobby is peeling bills out of his wallet, smacking them down on the table, face grim.

"Come on," he says. "We're goin'."

They fuckin' go.


	5. Chapter 5

They get about six blocks from the diner before Bobby pulls the Impala over onto the side of the road, skidding a little on a slick of ice before coming to a full stop.

"Dean," Bobby says, voice steady, "Dean, you need to calm down."

"I'm calm," Dean says, or tries to say, but he can't get enough air into his lungs to push the words out, and it's then that he realizes he's hyperventilating, lungs creaking, body quaking, fingers scrabbling for a hold on the smooth dash of the Impala.

"Dean," Bobby says, turning to hook an arm around the back of Dean's seat, facing him fully. "You're safe. _We're _safe, you got that? We left that diner because there's no use taking chances and 'cause there were probably ambulances and police cars on their way, not 'cause I thought there was a situation we couldn't handle. I've got a spritzer full of holy water in my back pocket, got a handgun loaded with rocksalt, invoked every damn protection charm I could think of, and I know an exorcism that only takes thirty seconds to perform. Thirty seconds, Dean, all right? Any demon tries to get near us, they're back in hell quicker'n you can say My Little Pony."

Dean sniffs a laugh despite himself, feels his breathing even out and his blood slow its adrenaline-shot charge, and he raises a shaky hand to his eyes, digs the heel into his sockets. He's already exhausted, so tired of feeling like the world is endless and unstoppable and full of things he doesn't understand, full of everything except for answers, except for Sam.

"Fuck," Dean says, kneads his forehead, blood humming with frustration. "Why the fuck am I so—I'm not supposed to be like this —"

"Supposed to be?" Bobby repeats, incredulous. "Dean… you weren't at any goddamn Girl Scout camp; there's no precedent for this, for coming back from where you've been – there is no _supposed to be_."

Dean shakes his head, thumps a useless fist against his window and watches the heat of Sam's skin bead condensation against the cold glass.

"I just wanna feel like I know what the fuck is going on," he says finally. "It's like everything in Hell was – was one thing. And everything before was something else. And I have them both, I _know_ them both, but they don't – exist at the same time. In the same – head. In my head. Like I have two heads. Fuck, does that even—?"

"Yeah," Bobby says. "Yeah, that makes sense. Whatever kinda sense it can make, I guess."

They sit in silence for a moment, Dean's heart still juddering in his chest, the quiet broken only by the occasional swish and sigh of a car as it goes slowly past, tires squelching on the snow-wet streets.

Then Dean says, "We should go back to the restaurant."

Bobby's eyebrows shoot up to hide under his cap, and Dean adds, "Not right now. Later. We can – ask some questions. Try and figure out what happened."

This is what he used to do, he knows. Ask questions. Find answers.

Bobby regards him carefully for a moment, then nods. "We should."

"And the lady at the store."

"What lady?"

"The lady," Dean says impatiently, "at the herb store. The bar – the bar-person said Sam was talking to – someone at a store that sells herbs… fuck, the name – I don't remember the name—"

He should have written it down. He'd forgotten to remember about writing, forgotten that he can organize things outside of his head and lay them out in physical space.

"You talked to someone who's seen your brother?" Bobby asks, tone suddenly sharp.

"Yeah – the motel clerk, and a bar-person—"

"Bartender."

"—bartender, and he said Sam was talking to – the lady with the store. Goddammit, I—"

"It's all right," Bobby says, starts the car again, and Dean shudders with the engine as it roars to life. "We can check the phonebook – how many apothecaries are there gonna be in a suburban Massachusetts town, huh?"

"Massachusetts." Dean rolls the name around in his head. "Why Massachusetts?"

"Another thing to add to the list of shit we don't know," Bobby says, but he softens the bitterness in his tone with a gentle thump on Dean's knee. "The list of shit we're gonna figure out."

:::

Back at the motel, Bobby and Dean go through Sam's things again, more methodically than Dean had alone – Bobby takes charge of the crap littered around the room, orders Dean to start unpacking the duffels on the rumpled bed, and Dean's glad there's someone there to tell him what to do, because the chaos of his brother's room overwhelms him, constricts his chest and presses hard and heavy on his stomach.

But it's just as tough, sorting through Sam's torn-up, bloodstained clothes and knowing that Sam was injured alone, patched himself up alone, healed alone. That morning in the bathroom he'd noticed a just-healed scar running down Sam's thigh, and he finds a pair of jeans with an identical gash, the edges stained with blood, like two puzzle pieces missing a connector.

Dean is carefully setting aside a pile of heat-packs when Bobby says suddenly, from the foot of the bed, "Dean."

Dean looks up so fast his jaw cracks, sees Bobby crouched down by the leg of the bed, brow furrowed. He looks up, says, "Get over here."

Dean clambers off so fast he almost loses his balance, changes his fall into a deliberate move and sinks down on his knees next to Bobby.

"What? What?"

"Jesus, take it easy," Bobby says. "You're gonna give us both a heart attack if you keep jumping around like that."

"_What_ _is it_?"

"Well," Bobby says. "Look." He lowers his hand to the dirty, discolored rug, passes two fingers across it and glances up at Dean.

"What is that?" Dean asks, peering at the stain under Bobby's hand. "Is that blood?"

"Sure looks like it," Bobby says. "I'm no forensics expert, but I've seen enough bloodstains in my life..."

"It could be old," Dean says, "it might not be Sam."

"It's deliberate, Dean," Bobby says grimly, pulls back the blanket hanging off the bed, and Dean sees that the blood isn't just spilled, it's _drawn, _in a ragged line that encircles the whole bed.

"Holy shit," Dean breathes.

"Nothin' holy about this shit," Bobby mutters.

He stands, abruptly, and Dean flinches violently away from the sudden move.

"Get up," Bobby demands, and Dean obeys, heart thumping wildly. "Help me move this bed."

With Dean on one side and Bobby on the other, they carefully lift the bed and stagger it to the other side of the room, Sam's bad shoulder shrieking protests that have Dean gritting his teeth even as he relaxes into the pull of it. Once the bed is clear of the wall, snugged against the opposite side and almost blocking the door but not quite, they settle it down and turn back.

"Jesus christ," Bobby says, and Dean's knees go weak.

There, underneath where the bed used to be, is a pair of blood-stiff jeans and a bloodstained, shredded grey t-shirt, both laid out carefully, flat and smooth as if waiting to be filled. And above the shirt, right at the neckline, is Dean's amulet.

They stare for a moment, and then Bobby says, slow and astonished: "You didn't look under the freakin' bed?"

Dean ignores him, already moving forward to cross the bloody threshold of the circle and kneel beside the clothes and the necklace. He reaches out a hand.

"Don't!" Bobby says, immediate and sharp, and Dean yanks his hand back, pain lancing up his shoulder.

"What is this?" Dean asks, "What are these clothes?" But even as he speaks he thinks he knows the answer.

"These are the clothes you were killed in," Bobby says, and his face is alabaster-pale behind his beard. "Goddammit, Sam… god_dammit_."

Dean stares down at the shirt, at the ragged slashes that decimate the front, and he finds himself running an unconscious hand down his chest and belly. He remembers dying, but it's just like he remembers getting any other wound. Pain, horrible, terrible pain, and then darkness. And then, the difference – fire.

"Candles," Bobby comments, and Dean follows his gaze to the four heaps of melted black wax, pooled and hardened on the carpet, dried leaves crumbled around them.

"Herbs," Dean says.

Bobby eases himself down beside where Dean's crouched, examines the leaves. "Hard to tell what all this is without touching it."

"What do you think – if you touch it?"

"I don't know what would happen."

"Do you think it would send me back?"

Bobby looks up, then. "I doubt it."

"So…"

Bobby sighs, snakes out a hand and picks up some of the dried plant, trickles it into his palm and peers at it for a moment, sniffs it.

"Sage," Bobby says. "That one's a no-brainer. This could be Linden, and I'm pretty sure this is rose-hips. This, though…" He pokes at a strange, rigid leaf, pale pink, almost white.

"Crab shell," Dean says, suddenly certain. "That's crab shell."

"Crab shell?"

"They walk backwards," Dean says. "It's for a – a backwards thing. A, a—"

"Reversal," Bobby says. "For reversal. You're right."

Dean pushes himself up, turns away from the clothes and takes a deep breath. "The shirt, Bobby. It's fucked. So, my body... my body musta been bad."

He hears Bobby get to his feet behind him. "Yeah, it was pretty bad."

"So it's – I – what's gonna happen if – when— where am I gonna go when we find Sam?"

"I don't know," Bobby says plainly. "You were – your body was pretty destroyed, Dean. And as far as we know, it's been rotting for the past three years. Or it's been burned. I don't know where you'll go."

"Or where Sam will go."

"Or that."

Dean closes his eyes. It's a little too much for him to handle right now, trying to untangle the logistics of the human form, while at the same time he feels like he's mourning something besides his brother. Mourning himself, the loss of himself. He _liked _his body. His body was _awesome. _

"First things first," Bobby says, coming to stand next to him. "First we figure out what Sam did."

"And where he is."

"Right. Then we'll worry about – this."

Dean reaches up, presses his thumb hard into Sam's shoulder on the pretext of massaging it, focuses for a moment on the jolt of pain that follows. It grounds him, connects him to his brother in the only way he can reach Sam right now.

"Why don't you slap a heat pack on that," Bobby suggests, but there's something other than simple concern in his tone. A creeping, careful wariness.

"I'm fine," Dean says. "I'm fine. This is… good. It's good to find what he did."

"I don't know if it's _good, _but it'll sure as hell make things a little easier for us."

"You recognize the spell? Have you read about it? Seen it?"

"No. This is – this is dark, Dean. Real dark. It's blood magic. I tend to avoid that crap, not seek it out."

"But you've got books."

"Yeah, I've got books," Bobby sighs.

"And you know people."

"Yes, I know people," Bobby says, rubs a hand slowly across his eyes and down his face, and Dean feels guilt well up in his throat.

"I'm sorry," he blurts out. "Sorry you're – sorry I got you into this."

Bobby lowers his hand, levels a piercing look at Dean. "You didn't get me into this. I've been in this since your Daddy first dropped you off on my doorstep and told me to keep you outta trouble, and I said Okay. I don't ever do anything I don't want to do, got it?"

This, Dean remembers, is true. "Well – thank you for—"

"You can thank me after we get this straightened out."

"I will," Dean promises, and Bobby shakes his head, rolls his eyes.

Dean takes a breath, glances around the room once more and then gives an experimental clap of his hands, remembers that this used to be something he did. Something that means it's get-up-and-go time.

"Let's find the store lady," he says. "In the telephone book."

"Store lady, here we come," Bobby says, and for a second he almost smiles.

:::

Bobby gets his own motel room and helps Dean pay for another night, helps him take the credit card out of his wallet and then nudges him gently when it's time to sign the receipt. Dean starts writing his name, slow and careful, pauses when Bobby clears his throat nervously.

He looks down, trying to figure out what's wrong.

_Dea—_

Oh.

He scratches out the three letters, glances at the credit card to check the spelling of the last name, then carefully writes _Sam Weisfelner _in wobbly, first-grader print, his hands still shaking. The clerk seems curious at Bobby's presence, but he doesn't comment, just rummages around under his desk till he finds the requested phonebook, then nods his thanks and grins them out the door. 

Bobby's empty motel room is much calmer than Sam's, and Dean relaxes a bit at the sight of the perfectly-made bed, the clean, bare rug.

"Sit down," Bobby orders, and Dean sits, turns the phonebook over in his hands until Bobby tugs it gently from his grasp and flips it open to H. There's no entry for _herbs _so he turns to A, but there's no _apothecary _either.

"Try S," Dean says. "Spices."

"Smart," Bobby says in approval as he turns the pages and they see the list unfold before them, and Dean knows it's childish but he feels immensely proud for having thought of it, for having put a word to the feeling in his head. It seems like a step in the right direction, a step back to normal. A step towards Sam.

At first the letters look like chicken-scratches to him, strange black marks that mean nothing, but almost immediately they start to assemble themselves into recognizable words and sentences, and he skims the list quickly, jabs a finger in the center of the page.

"Gretchen," he reads aloud. "Gretchen Kiesling. That's her."

Bobby squints at the book. "456 School Street," he says. "Huh. Think we passed School Street this morning, actually."

"Should we make the call?"

"The call? What call?"

Dean blinks, confused, then corrects himself. "A call. Should we – call."

Bobby checks his watch then checks the listing again. "Nah. Says they're open."

Dean stands. "Okay. Let's go."

"Hang on," Bobby says. "Are you armed?"

Dean swallows. "No."

"Well, let's stop by your room and get you a gun."

Something on Dean's face must belie the way his stomach is cramping, lungs tightening, because Bobby pauses on his way out the door and says, "You all right with that?"

Dean shakes his head mutely, and Bobby turns to face him.

"Dean," he says, tone firm but sorry. "You have to carry. You're – you're here, now, and you're in charge of whether or not you shoot, and who you shoot at, understand? But you've gotta have something."

It's true. It's true and Dean knows it, but that doesn't stop him from shuddering at the first touch of the cold metal against his skin, and as he nestles Sam's well-worn Glock in his jeans it feels like a snake twisting against the skin of his lower back, sleek and deadly.

"You're in charge of that thing," Bobby says again as he sees Dean's discomfort, sitting forward in the seat of the car so the gun doesn't press against him. "Don't let it scare you."

"I'm not _scared,_" Dean scoffs, but he is and they both know it. But fuck it – he's scared of everything. The flush of the toilet nearly gives him an aneurism, for chrissake. What's one more thing to fear?

Thinking about it like that calms him, for some reason, and he relaxes against the seat as Bobby guides them back onto the road alongside the motel.

Dean works his hands under his butt and sits on his fingers, as much to warm them as to stop them from quaking. They haven't stilled once since he's been back, and it's bugging the shit out of him. He wonders if maybe this is something he'll never shed. Wonders if he'll take it with him when he gives Sam back his body and Dean goes – wherever he goes.

"Someone sure did a great job plowing," Bobby grumbles as they slide into the parking lot of Kiesling Spices, tires spinning frenetically against the layer of snow that no one's cleared. Dean sees the tire-marks and the footprints already on the ground and he wonders if any of them are Sam's.

They settle the car in a relatively snow-less parking spot and get out, doors slamming with a slightly out-of-synch _bang _that has Dean whirling around, falling into a half-crouched stance that he only eases when he hears Bobby snort a poorly held-back laugh.

"I'm sorry," Bobby says when Dean goes red, "but you remind me of this crazy fucking cat I took in a while back, scared of everything. Used to snap my fingers just to watch her go batshit."

"You callin' me batshit?" Dean asks, and Bobby grins.

"C'mon, kitty."

The shop is warm and cramped, every corner of the space filled. Glass jars of herbs and spices line the sagging shelves, and there are concrete garden ornaments filling one side of the room: casts of gnomes and butterflies, imitations of greek statues.

"Hi there!" the woman at the counter chimes. She's tall, thin, grey hair pulled back into a braid, and she's wearing a silver necklace that spells out _Grace_. "Back so soon?"

"Hey," Dean says, forces a smile – it hadn't occurred to him that she'd recognize Sam. "How are you?"

"Oh, I'm fine, I'm fine. How'd everything work out the other night?"

Dean pauses, doesn't quite know how to answer that. He's here, so something worked out, but he has no fucking idea how much Sam's told her, and his heart starts racing, mind whirring.

"That's why we came, actually," Bobby says, tilts his hat back on his head and leans against the counter. "Something went a little haywire, and we're thinkin' we might have left out an herb or two."

"Ah. Are you Sam's…?"

"Family friend," Bobby says, offers a hand. "Name's _Christo_ Singer."

"Grace Kiesling. It's a pleasure."

"Likewise," Bobby says, withdrawing his hand. "Anyway, we were hopin' you might have a copy of the receipt, so we can do a check-through. This guy's a little absentminded sometimes."

He jabs a thumb at Dean, and Dean grins foolishly, tries to look forgetful.

"Sure," Grace says, turns to the computer on the counter and begins typing rapidly. "But Sam and I went through it several times together, and I think if we'd left something out, I'd know. Did you remember to light the candles South to North, honey?"

This last is addressed to Dean, and he starts, then nods. "Yeah. South to North."

"Hmm," she says. "What, exactly, went wrong?"

"Uh," Dean says. "Uh."

"Because I did tell you it could take some time to find your brother's _precise _location, especially if his aura is clouded by drugs. Did you give it at least an hour?"

"Yeah," Dean says. _Drugs? _"I waited all night."

"Well," she says, and the printer spins to life beside the monitor. "Here's your receipt, let's take a look at it together."

"Where'd you say you found the spell, Sam?" Bobby asks.

Dean freezes but Grace says, "Oh, he didn't find it. I rustled it up out of my old files. Funny, it's always worked for me… it's a simple incantation, but incredibly powerful. Luckily I haven't had to use it for years." She looks up, a bitter smile twisting the corner of her mouth. "As I told Sam – my husband and I had a similar situation with our daughter. First it was marijuana, which I didn't worry about, because really, the fuss people make about smoking a little dope now and again – but then she started hanging out with the wrong crowd, and I'm not saying she's blameless because goodness knows she wasn't, but if it weren't for them I doubt she'd ever have put the needle to her arm in the first place."

Dean can feel Bobby's shoulders stiffen in sympathy beside him. "Heroin, huh? That shit'll take you by the throat and never let you go."

"Takes a strong will to kick it," Grace agrees, and her eyes light up. "Luckily my Lucy is strong, and I'm sure your brother is too. But there were days – she ran off, finally, just packed a bag, didn't even take a sweater, and disappeared one night with her goddamn junkie boyfriend, excuse my language… Anyway, that's when I found the spell."

"To find drug addicts," Dean tries.

"To find lost souls," Grace says, turns sad eyes on Dean. "Like your brother."

Goosebumps prickle Dean's arms, and he swallows rapidly.

"Grace," he says. "I'm – my head is all over the place, you know… can't focus, I'm just fucking worried…"

"I was the same," she soothes. "It's horrible, not knowing where they are or what they're doing."

"Right," he says. "And – I lost the incantation this morning. Do you –"

But she's already handing across the printed receipt as well as another sheet of paper.

"I photocopied a few extras," she says. "Here you go. I'm sure if you try again, you'll—"

She stops abruptly with a series of harsh, painful-sounding coughs, and Dean tries not to jump back at the sound.

"Swallowed something wrong," she manages, pounds herself on the chest, and Bobby leans forward.

"You all right?"

"Fine," she wheezes, but she can't stop coughing, shakes her head a little like she's embarrassed. "Just get some water," she rasps, moves to come out from behind the counter.

"Sorry," she says between coughs, "I'll" _cough_ "be right" _cough cough _"back."

She disappears into a door at the end of the store marked with the telltale boy/girl sign, and Dean, taking advantage of her absence, spreads the receipt and the incantation out on the counter, eyes darting back and forth between the two.

"It was a finding spell," he says, tries to keep his voice down. "But – we've used these before, and – I mean, I was in _Hell, _a finding spell can't –"

"You heard what she said."

Dean nods a little. "Lost souls. But—"

"I think she mighta underestimated the power of the spell. This is _old, _Dean. Look at the latin."

Dean presses his lips together, squints at the directions for the incantation and then glances back at the receipt. Something's off, and it takes him a moment to figure out what.

"Bobby," he says. "Some of the – some of what Sam bought is – different. Is more. I mean, he bought more than the spell."

"He bought extra?"

"Here," Dean says. "He bought four black candles – the spell says two blue candles."

"He bought the blue ones, too."

"Yeah, but maybe to cover – to pretend."

"He must have modified the original spell. Or maybe it was just a part of a larger ritual."

Dean nods, scans the papers again. "And look, here he bought—"

There's a creak as the bathroom door opens, and Dean stops talking, looks up as Grace comes towards them, a glass of water in her hand.

"Sorry about that," she says. "Something went down the wrong pipe."

"No problem," Bobby says. "Listen, thank you for your help. I think we figured out what went wrong. We invoked the sage before lighting the candles."

"That would explain it," Grace says, takes a sip of the water before putting it down, clears her throat, and Dean braces himself for another onslaught of raucous coughing, but she seems fine now.

"Thank you," Dean says.

"Good luck," Grace says, looks at him with bright, steady eyes. "I know what it's like to lose someone."

"He's not lost," Dean says, something in her voice unnerving him. "He's misplaced."

Grace lets out a surprised laugh, and Dean relaxes a little. For a moment he thought he'd seen it: that hungry, longing gaze, the darkness of it – but he's pretty sure it was just the look of a woman mourning the missing pieces of her daughter's life. The other people – he doesn't think they'd looked as sad as Grace does now.

Or, he thinks, their faces flashing before him in rapid succession – the girl outside the motel, the waitress, the waiter – maybe they had.

He raises his right hand to grip Sam's bad shoulder, schools his face and digs his thumb in where he knows it'll hurt the most, and the resulting pain is fierce and white and grounding, and he calms with it.

Grace notices, winces in sympathy as his thumb finds the badly-healed spur of bone, and Bobby reaches forward and puts a hand on Dean's right elbow, pulls his arm down surreptitiously.

"Thanks again," he says. "Have a nice day, ma'am."

"You too," she says. "Careful of the ice on the way out. Stay warm."

"We'll try," Bobby promises, and attempts to steer Dean out of the store. Dean makes it to the door before he looks back, but Grace is straightening a display of greeting cards, not looking at them anymore. But still – he feels as if he's _missed _something.

Bobby is quiet as he revs the Impala's engine a few times, turns up the heat and backs out of the slippery parking lot. He's quiet as they drive back down the quiet road, past the naked trees and the smooth, white front lawns, unmarked except for the occasional footprint.

Then he says, "It's not good for the shoulder, you keep pokin' at it like that."

Dean stiffens. "I know."

"Must hurt."

"Yeah."

Bobby sighs. "Kinda freaks me out, Dean. Freaked Grace out, too, you causin' yourself pain on purpose. You see the look on her face?"

And just like that, Dean realizes what's wrong.

"Turn the fuck around," he orders, sitting forward in his seat, heart immediately cranked up to double-time. "Bobby, turn the fuck around."

"What? What the hell—"

"How the fuck did she know about Sam's shoulder, Bobby? All I did was touch it but she – she knew it hurt. How the fuck does she know Sam has a bad shoulder?"

Bobby does nothing for exactly half a second, and then he yanks the wheel so quickly that Dean is flung back into his seat. The U-turn is sloppy and urgent, back tires fishtailing on the slippery road, front tires bumping briefly up onto someone's lawn, narrowly missing their mailbox, but it does the trick, and then they're pointed back towards the store.

"Fuck," Dean says, nails digging into his palms, "Bobby, do you think—"

"I have no fucking idea, Dean," Bobby says, and though his face is calm, his knuckles are bone-white where they grip the wheel.

Dean sucks in a breath, tries to calm himself, and his ribs are suddenly too tight for his lungs, his chest swollen huge and tight with fear and adrenaline and confusion – and with another emotion, high in his throat, spread through his entire body — an emotion that he can't immediately identify.

But the name comes to him as they skid back into the parking lot and Bobby throws on the E-brake, flings open the door.

Hope. He's feeling hope.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: **All of you people with televisions are probably settling in to watch Show right now -- blow the boys a kiss for me, will you? I hope the internet-people upload this episode ASAP so I can download it illegally this very evening.

Also, as most of you know, I am unable to respond to most reviews on this site, but I read and appreciate all of them. Thank you all so very much -- you make my day over and over again.

:::

Grace is still at the front counter when Bobby and Dean come back into the shop, and she looks up, fear already standing stark and pale on her face.

"You're back," she says, "you—"

But she cuts off with a strangled gasp as Bobby steps behind the counter and leverages a gun at her head.

"Christo," he says again, and Dean flinches at the white-hot fire of it, but Grace just lets out a terrified moan, eyes still dishwater blue and clear.

Dean untwists the cap from the flask of holy water in his hand, careful not to let the liquid touch him, and he splashes it on Grace, who splutters like any human with a face full of water and takes one stumbling step backwards, hits a display of tiny porcelain gnome figurines that teeter off their shelf and hit the floor with a tinkling crash.

"Please," she stutters, heel crunching on the broken gnomes, "please don't hurt me, oh god, there's money in the drawer, take the key, I don't care, just please don't hurt me, don't kill me—"

"We're not gonna hurt you long as you answer a few questions for us," Bobby says, nudges the gun into her temple, and Dean watches, heart in his throat, as her face grows white with the contact of metal against skin, tears sliding down her face.

"Please," she whispers, "please, please, I don't know what you think but please—"

"Bobby," Dean chokes, "Bobby, jesus, put the gun down."

Bobby turns an incredulous face towards Dean, keeps the gun snug against her head.

"It's not –" Dean scrubs a hand across his face, trying to find the words, tries to explain how he knows. "It's just a person – she's – she's clean, there's nothing, I can feel when… when there's … fuck, just, please…"

"Please," Grace echoes, eyes wide and mouth twisted with panic, and Dean can't stand to hear her voice, pleading with them not to hurt her, please not to hurt her, please, please don't hurt me, please don't hurt me again, stop please stop _hope your brother was worth this, Deano _please don't hurt him don't hurt him don't hurt don't _bet you'll sound even prettier without a tongue _please don't please please –

Dean retches, staggers blindly backwards and doubles over, gagging fruitlessly, empty stomach heaving and clenching.

"Ah, hell," Bobby says.

"No shit," Dean manages after a moment, flashback receding as quickly as it came, a string of bile connecting his lip to the ground. He swipes at it with his jacket sleeve and sucks in a deep breath, hands on his knees, willing himself back to the present, to the here and now, boots planted firmly on the carpet, fruity potpourri smell in his nostrils, real skin and real air and his mind in a real body.

He straightens, finds Grace staring at him open-mouthed, Bobby still holding the gun loosely to her head.

"Dean," Bobby asks, not unkindly. "You ready to suck it up?"

"Yes sir," Dean answers automatically.

"Now listen, Grace," Bobby says. "If you are who you say you are – then just calm down, all right? We don't want to hurt you, I promise. We just want some answers. Why don't you take a seat?"

Grace sinks down into the chair behind the register, and Bobby takes a step back but doesn't lower the gun.

Until Grace blurts out, "You're Hunters, aren't you?"

"What?" Bobby barks, surprised, and his hand wavers a little. "How—"

"I just realized – I just realized you said – you said _christo _to me," Grace says, and Dean fights back a flinch. "Though I didn't notice the first time." She pulls in a breath. "Your name's not really Christo, is it?"

Bobby shakes his head minutely.

"And you," Grace says, turning to Dean. "You're not really Sam."

Dean can't speak, vision going white around the edges, so he just stands stock-still, listens to the rattle of his heart.

"All right," Grace says after a moment, when it's clear Dean's not going to answer. She smoothes her hands nervously down her skirt, closes her eyes. "I've been – I've been in this business a long time, and – and, you know, it'd be much easier to speak without a gun on me."

"Tough shit," Bobby says. "If you're a Hunter, you'll know we can't take any chances."

"I am _not _a Hunter," Grace says, as if the idea offends her. "But I have known my fair share. And I've been –" she takes a gulp of air. "I've been possessed. When I was a girl."

"You've _what_?"

"I've been possessed, for three days until it was exorcized, and – whatever happened just now – it wasn't a demon in me."

"Okay," Bobby says, "slow the hell down, all right? You're sayin' – you're sayin' something happened? That there was something in you?"

"That's why you came back, isn't it?"

"Well –"

"It wasn't a demon," Grace repeats, casts a glance at Bobby's gun, fear fading slowly to exasperation. "For heaven's sake, I'll tell you everything if you lower that thing. Or at least take a step back."

Bobby glances at Dean, who nods emphatically, and he reluctantly lowers the gun.

"Talk," Bobby says.

"I lost time," Grace says without preamble. "I – it felt like I was choking, when I coughed – but not choking on something in my throat." She raises a hand to her neck. "It was more – _inside. _And water didn't help, and – and then I – I wasn't all me anymore."

"Who were you?" Bobby asks, voice quiet.

Grace turns, her gaze settling on Dean. "I was Sam_._"

Dean lets out a shaky breath, finds he's got a fist pressed up to his mouth, teeth digging into his knuckles so hard the skin is at the point of breaking, and he drops it, frees his mouth so he can say, to no one in particular: "_Sam._"

"That's how I know you aren't – whoever Sam is," Grace says. "When I looked at you, I didn't see – I didn't see – oh, I can't explain it, but I knew that I was Sam and you were – not-you. Not-Sam. Not-me. It doesn't make sense, I know, but—"

"It makes sense," Dean says. "It makes sense."

"Well then explain it _me,_" Grace says, sounding miffed. The color is returning to her face, and her shoulders have relaxed a little.

"First our questions," Dean tells her, and he's proud that the command comes out strong and confident. "What did Sam think?"

"What did—?"

"What was he thinking," Dean corrects himself. "What was he thinking, when you were – when he was—when—"

"I don't know," Grace says, shakes her head helplessly. "I've told you all I know. It was just feelings I got, not words."

"What feelings?" Dean demands.

"Joy," Grace says slowly. "And… fear. And sadness."

"Joy, and fear, and sadness," Bobby repeats. "Great. You know some of those kinda contradict the others?"

"Listen," Grace snaps. "You're asking, and I'm answering. If you'd like me to lie so it makes more sense, by all means, tell me."

"No," Dean says hastily. "You're good. It's good. Is that – is there more? Anything? Anything."

"That's all I can say," Grace says. "Now – please – will you tell me what's going on?"

"I wish we could," Bobby says heavily. "We're tryin'a figure it out, ourselves."

"Who is Sam?" Grace asks. "When you –" she turns to Dean. "When you came in the other day, the first time – _that's _Sam, isn't it. That's who I was. I could – I recognized him."

"Yeah," Dean says, heart swelling painfully. "That was Sam."

"So who are _you_?" she asks, eyes narrowing. "When I looked at you – I saw just black. Black light."

"Blacklight?"

"Christo," Grace says suddenly, and Dean is too surprised to hold back his wince of pain, and her mouth flies open.

"No, no," Dean says hastily, "my eyes, Grace, look at my eyes, and –" Words come to him, familiar words, and he offers them, pleads them, "Our father, who art in heaven, _Pater noster, qui es in caelis: sanctificetur Nomen Tuum; adveniat Regnum Tuum; fiat voluntas Tua, sicut in caelo, et in terra – _the prayer, the prayer, I can do the prayer, I'm not a demon."

"What is going _on _here?" Grace shrieks. "I've had my troubles, I don't need yours – please, just – get _out._ Take your gun and _get out._"

"All right," Bobby says, holds up his hands. "We're gettin', we're gettin'. Thanks for your cooperation."

"_Cooperation_? Who wouldn't _cooperate_ with a _weapon _pointed at them?"

"I'm sorry," Dean says, "for the – stress."

"Just leave," Grace snaps, looks for a moment like she's fighting with herself, then blurts out, "And call me when you figure out what the hell happened just now. A woman wants to know who's been _inside _her."

Dean finds himself smirking at that, and Bobby gives him a gentle cuff on his arm.

"C'mon," he says. "Let's leave this poor woman in peace."

"Peace, he says," Grace huffs as they back towards the door. "Peace, after what he's just put me through. I swear…"

She's still muttering as Dean and Bobby step out into the freezing air, the door closing behind them with a soft jingle of bells.

They don't speak until they reach the car, and for this Dean is glad. It's easier for him to think, to speak, in the Impala, in the closed, familiar space – it makes the world seem less enormous, less endlessly complex. And he wants to be able to form his words right, because he has a fuckload of questions he hasn't yet been able to verbally frame.

"So," Bobby says as he turns the key, the engine growling in frigid protest.

"My brother," Dean says, tries to lay it out as best he understands it, "is hop… hop."

Bobby waits a moment, then repeats, "Your brother is hop-hop," and Dean can't understand how he's grinning at a time like this.

"Shut up," Dean says, closes his eyes so he can think, the words on the tip of his tongue. "He's hop-body. Fuck, no, he's body-hop. Body-hopping. Sam is body-hopping. Those people – the waitress, and the restaurant man. He was them."

"Looks that way," Bobby says. "Yeah."

"Okay," Dean says. "So I – when you say that word, and do the water thing – it hurts. But I don't have the black eyes. And I don't feel – I'm not a demon."

"No."

"But I'm a _thing from Hell,_" Dean says, clenches his fists and opens his eyes again.

Bobby slows at a railroad crossing, and they watch a freight train trundle by with a sighing groan, its flaking red paint sharp and bright against the snow-filled sky.

"I don't know what to tell you," Bobby says finally. "Do I think you're evil? No, Dean, I don't – so quit worrying yourself about that, if you were thinkin' about starting. But you… listen, I'm not a theological man, Dean, and I don't know shit about souls and essences and all that religious new-age bullcrap – but whatever makes you _you _has been taken outta Hell and plopped down in your brother's body. So, yeah – you are. You're from Hell, I guess."

"I sold my soul," Dean says slowly. Bobby nods, bunches his eyebrows together.

"You just remember that part of it?"

"No, listen… what if… my soul still belongs in Hell? Belongs _to _Hell? What if I'm – property?"

Bobby bumps them over the vacated railroad tracks, pulls his cap down and squints towards the pavement of the main road, snow-melt black. "I don't know, Dean. We're goin' on speculation, at this point. It's possible. It's all possible."

"But Sam – Sam is out there."

"Sure seems to be."

"He can choose who he's in," Dean says. "Because, he's chosen to be in people we're near. People who are with me. He's – checking, I think. Checking on me. But where is he when he's – not in someone? Is he – floating?"

"Damned if I know."

"And why doesn't he talk? Talk to me? Why doesn't he explain what the fuck he did? Why is he _hiding_?"

"Dean—"

"I know," Dean says, frustrated, "I know – you don't know. We don't know. But it's – I want a list. Of things we need to know. So that we can… know."

"No, it's good, you askin' questions," Bobby says. "Good to lay this shit out. I just wish I had more answers."

"He used a spell to find me," Dean says carefully. "Why can't we… make… magic? Also use a spell?"

"Well," Bobby says. "The crap your brother was messin' around with – we know Grace gave him the locating spell. But my guess is, he put his own spin on it. Probably mixed-and-matched. And Dean… the stuff under the bed. Your clothes. Your _blood. _It's blood-magic – deep magic. _Dark._ I'm not gettin' involved in that, I'm sorry. I won't."

"The clothes," Dean says, following his own train of thought. "You said I've been… dead… three years."

Bobby's quiet.

"So if… those are the clothes I died in. Three years old. So did Sam – did he know? Why would he save them? Were they still on me when – you said he didn't – didn't tell you what he – how he – where he did with my body. _Fuck, _I talk like shit."

"I understand you just fine. And you're right. I don't know what he did with your body. Last time I saw – you – you were still in those clothes. In the back of the Impala." Bobby's voice is steady, but Dean sees a slight tremor in his jaw, and he fights not to picture it: Sam in the front seat, wild-eyed and grief-stricken, Dean's corpse splayed out in the back seat, blood soaking into the floor, Bobby watching them drive off. Sam, alone. Everyone, alone. Dean – burning.

"So he knew – even then – did he know he would need blood?"

Bobby blinks. "I never thought of that."

"He was – a plan. Or –" Dean pauses. "Or he – kept me."

Bobby shudders a little, and Dean finds himself trembling, also.

"I don't know," Bobby says. "I just don't know."

Dean leans his forehead against the cold window, exhausted from the effort of speaking so much. He rolls Sam's bad shoulder, imagines he can feel where the bone rubs unevenly, fucked-up muscles straining.

"Why do you do that?" Bobby asks suddenly. "Why are you tryin' to hurt yourself?"

Dean startles a little at the direct question, starts to say he doesn't know, then re-thinks it.

"In Hell," he says slowly, "I got… hurt a lot."

Bobby's breath hitches, but he gives a little nod, like it's all right to keep going.

"But I didn't – it wasn't _me. _I mean, it was me, but I didn't have—" a word comes to him in Sam's voice, and he says quickly, "I wasn't _corporeal._"

Bobby nods again, hands tight on the wheel.

"But now –" Dean says, flexes his shoulder, unclenches and re-clenches his shaking hands. "When it hurts – it's right here. The pain is right here. I have a body. It isn't – it isn't _me _that hurts. It's just – the body."

"Okay," Bobby says, clearly trying to process this.

"And, all right," Dean says, spreads his hands out in front of him, glances to Bobby. "See the – see the shake?"

"Yeah."

"That's me," Dean says. "I'm shaking, not Sam. But the shoulder – is Sam. Sam's body hurts. But my hands shake. Does that – are you understanding?"

"A little."

"The shoulder – it's good to – it helps to remind me – that I have a body, now. And it's good to think about Sam. Those two things. Are why I like to – make it hurt." Dean shakes his head, grins a little. "It's fucked-up, but it's not like… not like the thing with the leather. Those girls with the leather."

Bobby blinks for a moment, confused, and then snorts an astonished laugh. "You can't remember how to make full sentences, but you remember _bondage porn._"

"I can make full sentences," Dean says, a little affronted. "Just, they're shitty ones."

"I know you can," Bobby says, sobering almost immediately. "Tell you the truth, I can't believe you're talking at all. After what – after—"

"That was Hell," Dean says, doesn't know how to explain it. "It's – I didn't have a body. I didn't have a _head. _The memories don't fit in a brain. Until they do sometimes."

Bobby sighs. "Jesus, Dean."

"I'm hungry," Dean says, suddenly realizes that the gaping void in his stomach isn't entirely emotional. "Can we eat food? And can you – tell me about the world?"

"The world."

"Just talk to me about… things that aren't _this. _It's – I need – it's all fast. It's really fast. And I'm really slow right now, really slow. I feel like – bees. Feel like bees in my head."

"Yeah," Bobby says, smiles a little. "Let's get something to eat. I'll tell you about how Jo got knocked-up by a rockstar and lives in Hollywood with him and their new baby.

"What?" Dean squawks.

"Just kidding," Bobby says, and when Dean relaxes, "He's actually an art professor in Chicago."

"What?!"

:::

They go to a quiet pizza place just off route 2, and Dean eats six slices as Bobby looks on, amused.

"Pizza," Dean says in wonder, wiping sauce off his chin. "Motherfucker."

"Yeah, it's pretty good, all right," Bobby agrees. "Go careful, there, don't make yourself sick."

Dean looks down at himself. "I'm Sam," he says. "I'm like, huge."

"Good point. Though I gotta tell you, doesn't look like Sam's been eating all that much."

Dean runs a hand over his side, feels the bony protrusion of ribs. "Fuckin' idiot. My brother." He reaches for another slice. "Gotta feed him."

Bobby huffs a laugh.

"Can't believe Jo has a kid," Dean says through a mouthful of cheese.

"He's a cute little thing," Bobby says. "Named him after her father. Bill."

"Does she—" Dean's not sure he's allowed to ask, but he keeps going. "Does she like it?"

"Her kid?"

"Yeah. And just… to be a mom."

Bobby smiles. "Well… she's not the type to keep a kid she doesn't want."

"Right," Dean says, wincing.

"She's also not the stay-at-home housewife type."

"Yeah, no."

"But her husband's got some kind of art-grant, so he's home all day cleanin' and cookin' and all that, and she's been working at a bar and doing some hunting on the side. I think she's pretty happy, tell you the truth. He's a good guy, her husband. Can't understand a damn thing about his art, all this weird-colored paint and candle wax b.s., but he's a real good guy."

"Great," Dean says, feels strangely put-out, and Bobby chuckles.

"Jealous?"

"Huh? No!"

"You and Jo," Bobby asks. "You ever, uh?"

"No."

"Scared of Ellen?"

"Scared," Dean echoes. Yeah. He remembers being scared, when Jo looked at him like – like how she looked at him – but he doesn't know if it was Ellen who frightened him. Or even Jo. It was something else.

"Listen," Bobby says, changing the subject. "I've been thinking… what you said about spells."

"We use one?"

"No – well – first of all, we need to find out what spell Sam used. And you and I don't know much about spellwork – it'll take us months to get together enough research and knowledge to figure out which spells he used and how he tweaked them, if we ever figure it out at all."

"Okay," Dean says, heart sinking at the truth of it.

"But I know someone," Bobby continues. "Someone who's studied more about spells and spellwork than anyone I've ever met."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Bobby hesitates. "She's also the most powerful psychic in the United States."

"Yeah? What's her name? Wonderwoman?"

"Pamela. Pamela Barnes."

Their waitress comes over to check on them, then, and they both tense up.

"You boys doin' all right over here?"

"Yes'm," Bobby says, and Dean watches, waits, but doesn't feel anything from her other than perfunctory pleasantness.

"Well, let me know if you need something."

"Will do."

She leaves, and Dean relaxes a little.

"When it's Sam," Dean says, hesitantly. "When it's Sam, I can – he _feels _different. At first I thought – maybe demons – but now I think – I know if I see him."

"Yeah?" Bobby says.

"I wish he'd come back," Dean says, half to himself. "Wish he'd come."

"Yeah," Bobby says.

:::

Dean was expecting Pamela to be old, a frumpy, professor-type, but when Bobby calls her on their way back to the motel, her voice is loud and young over the phoneline. Dean can't make out her words, but he hears the clear, strong timbre of them and starts to doubt his first assumptions.

"You're kiddin' me," Bobby says when he asks her where she is. "I didn't think you _had _parents. Figured you sprung out fully-formed from the head of Zeus."

There's laughter and a rapid-fire retort that has Bobby chuckling. "Well, you think you can take a few days off from family-time and make it down here?"

There's a pause, and Bobby says, "Well, as soon as possible, to be honest."

Another pause, and then he says, "Four hours? You serious?"

Then, "Thanks, Pamela. I owe you one."

There's a loud protest, and Bobby says, "Fine, then, we're fair and square. Be good to see you, kid."

He grins a little at her response, then snaps his cellphone shut. Dean doesn't jump at the sound, no he does not.

"Well," Bobby says. "Dunno if it's divine coincidence or some demonic accident, but Pamela's visiting her mother over in New Hampshire. She's bookin' it down here soon as she can. Think she's relieved to have an excuse to get away."

"She's coming tonight?"

"Looks that way. She says four hours, I give her six."

Dean starts to answer, but finds himself interrupted with a yawn, bubbling up from his core. It's almost five o'clock, the light already leeching from the air, and Sam's body may be aching but Dean's mind is just absolutely spent. He's exhausted_, _wants to close his eyes for a year and then open them to find everything solved, Sam beside him, road in front. Wants it to be summer, wants to not be so fucking cold, so fucking slow and dumb. Wants to be able to write his name without the pen skittering all over the place, stupid fingers that won't stop shaking, stupid mouth that won't stop saying the wrong things.

"Why're you here?" Dean asks Bobby as they pull into the motel parking lot, tiredness slurring his words and making them blunter than he'd like.

"Why am I – is that a metaphysical question?"

"No," Dean says. "I mean – you drove here. Far. And it's a mess – Sam's gone and there's Hell and I'm – I'm like this – it's fucked-up and you aren't have to – you _don't _have to be in this fucked-up – in this – " he breaks off, furious at himself. He knows what he wants to say but he can't figure out how to speak it.

"Dean," Bobby says, switches the engine off and turns to face him in the passenger seat. "I'm gonna explain this just once, so you need to understand it the first time, you got me?"

"Okay," Dean says. With the heat off the car is already cooling, and he feels the chill seep through the doors and sidle around the edges of his bones.

"Your dad went to Hell for you," Bobby says bluntly, and Dean feels a flutter of panic, because he can't think about his father, can't think about John, isn't ready, will confront that after he's got Sam back and after he's a real person again and after everything's okay and after –

"—and you went to Hell for Sam," Bobby continues.

"Yeah," Dean agrees, because he can think about that without feeling like his heart's going to explode.

"You Winchesters…" Bobby sighs. "I've known you since you were six years old, but the shit that you would do for one another… after twenty-some-odd years, it still astounds me." He shakes his head, turns away from Dean and leans back in the seat, and Dean shivers as the air gets colder, watches his breath begin to huff from his mouth in misty clouds.

"I wouldn't go to Hell for you, Dean," Bobby says after a moment. "I don't think I could do that. I'm not your father. I'm not _you. _I don't have that crazy-ass selfish _selflessness _that you Winchesters got in spades."

"You're—" Dean starts to protest.

"Hush, boy. What I'm saying is – I wouldn't go to Hell for you. But I would do just about any other damn thing in the world."

Dean finds that all of a sudden he can't look at Bobby, so he stares out at the drab motel door instead and blinks a few times.

"Look at me," Bobby demands, and Dean turns unwillingly. "If I called you, and I said _I'm in a big fucking mess and it's ugly and it's dangerous and it's complicated as hell, get here as quick as you can_, what would you do?"

"I'd come," Dean says instantly, and just like that he _gets it. _"Okay, Bobby. Yeah."

"We understand one another?"

"Yeah."

"Don't ever ask me again why I'm here," Bobby says, a strange vehemence to his voice. "I may not be John, and I may not be your brother – but I'm – _something. _You're something to me, Dean, you and your whole messed-up family. When you died –" Bobby breaks off, turns to grab the duffle from the backseat with a quickness that has Dean cringing.

"We're done with this conversation, right?" Bobby says, opening the door and swinging one leg out.

"Right," Dean says. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it," Bobby says.

Dean won't.

:::

Dean, shamefully, falls asleep a few hours after Bobby pulls out a shiny new Mac (_"Don't say it,_" Bobby warns, and Dean's not sure what it is that he would say, but he knows it'd be freakin' hilarious) so they can do some research. They don't find much, and Dean can't quite remember how to work a computer, so he's lying on the bed listening to Bobby read to him, and his eyes slip shut before he can think how to stop them.

Dean dreams, this time, for the first time since he's been back – and it isn't a nightmare, like he might have expected. It's light, and – and sad, and Sam's there, and the day is warm. There's rough prairie grass, and some kind of water – a river or a brooke, or something sweet and mild that moves slow – and Dean thinks maybe he's had this dream before. Nothing much happens. He and Sam are sitting on the ground, facing one another, drinking something out of brown bottles, and they don't say anything or do anything until Sam gets up and throws a rock into the water and Dean watches it sink, watches the water swallow it down, the waves smoothing over any ripples it may have made. And Sam stands by the water and Dean stays on the grass.

He wakes up in tears, with Bobby standing by him, one hand hovering over his shoulder.

"You – you were – crying," Bobby says. "Was it a dream?"

"Yeah."

"Were you dreaming –"

"Not about Hell," Dean says, pushes himself up, Sam's shoulder twingeing, and he wipes curiously at his cheeks. "I don't know why I'm crying."

"Okay," Bobby says carefully. "Well, if you want to talk."

"I want to pee," Dean says, and Bobby grins a little.

"That must be kinda strange," he says. "Goin' to the bathroom in your brother's body."

"I'm trying not to think about it, thanks," Dean says darkly, and stalks off as Bobby cackles behind him.

In the bathroom Dean does his business, which is admittedly a bit awkward, given the givens, then washes his hands and spends a moment looking at himself in the mirror. Looking at Sam.

It's funny, but when he looks at his brother – he can tell it isn't Sam. Thinks that he would recognize something _off _if he met this person on a crowded street.

It's not Sam – but it _is. _It's the only Sam he's got.

He rubs a hand up his stubbled cheek, blinks and watches the scar across Sam's face tug at his eyelid. He pushes his shirt off the bad shoulder and looks at the twisted, lumpy purple scar from the bullet wound, pushes his pants down a little to examine a strange, crosshatched burn on Sam's hip.

"We're gonna talk about this," Dean mutters to himself, to Sam. "Don't know how to take care of yourself. Christ."

Suddenly there's a sharp knock at the motel door, and Dean stiffens. He hears the bed creak as Bobby gets up to answer, then there's a pause, a click of the knob, and the muffled sound of a door swinging open.

"Bobby Singer," says a delighted female voice, and Bobby says "Oof!" and there's a brief scuffling sound that has Dean putting a hand on the bathroom doorknob in worry until he hears Bobby say,

"Aren't you a sight for sore eyes."

"Back atcha, Singer. It's been too damn long." There's the thump of boots, then, "Where's your little friend?"

"Bathroom," Bobby says, and lowers his voice, almost too quiet for Dean to hear, but he manages to make out the words. "Listen, Pamela – he's – he's skittish."

Dean bristles a little, but he can't begrudge Bobby the truth.

"Skittish?"

"You'll figure it out. But for now – let's just say I'd appreciate if you were – gentle with him."

"I'm always gentle," Pamela purrs, and Dean realizes suddenly that she's gonna be really hot. He's not sure how he feels about that.

"I mean it," Bobby warns. "No loud noises, no sudden movements, keep your voice down, and be real slow if you're gonna touch him. No, scratch that – just don't touch him."

"That bad, huh?" Pamela asks, and her tone is serious, a quick switch from just a moment ago.

"That bad," Bobby confirms, and Dean hates that it's true. Hates that he's grateful to Bobby for telling her.

"Dean," Bobby says, raising his voice a little. "C'mon, kid, we both know you're eavesdropping."

Dean snorts, then eases the door open. Feels, for the first time, how _tall _Sam really is, and he hunches over a little, feels incredibly awkward in this enormous, unfamiliar body.

"Hey," he says to Pamela. Who is every bit as hot as he thought she'd be. Well, fuck.

"Hey yourself," she says, looking him up and down. "_You're _skittish?"

"I'm Dean," he corrects her, and edges into the motel room to get a better look. She's tall and dark-haired and exudes a cocky strength, wears almost too much eye makeup and has a hip thrown forward like she's ready – ready to fuck, or fight, or kick – ready for anything. She's _scary. _But Dean finds that he's not afraid of her.

She laughs quietly at his attempt at a joke, says, "Clearly I'm Pamela. So, do you shake hands, or is that a big scary no-no?"

Dean casts an annoyed look at Bobby and offers his hand.

She's slow as she takes it, and when she's gripping his palm she closes her eyes a little, squeezes gently and shudders a breath.

"Jesus," she says. "Sorry about that."

"I," he says, confused. "Sorry?"

"All that Hell bullshit you just went through," she says, opens her eyes and gives him a cat-like smile that manages to be sympathetic and ironic at the same time. "Musta been… Hell."

"Or something," he says, and she laughs again.

"Well," she says. "Why don't you boys siddown and spill so we can get me on the up-and-up? I've been sitting around eating meatloaf and playing fucking _board games _for the past week – I'm just _itching _to get my hands in something nasty."

"This is plenty nasty," Bobby promises, and she grins, takes a graceful seat on the desk.

"Tell me," she says. "And tell me you've got whiskey or some of that nasty old-man beer you drink. God, I hate driving."

"That's 'cause you drive like an elephant," Bobby says, but he gets up to rummage in the mini-fridge.

"What the fuck does that mean? How the hell does an elephant drive?" Pamela asks, looking to Dean for support, then winces. "Oh, shit. Can I say Hell around you?"

Dean snorts. "I'm not—it's—a word—if you—Hell—I—" he cuts himself off, starts over. "You can say – whatever. Anything." And then, because Bobby's already outed him as a big fucking baby and he may as well be honest, "Just don't throw shit. Or – yell."

"Okay," she says. "Deal."

Dean smiles back at her, but he's distracted, stuck on that word. It scares him worse than hearing her say _hell_, for some reason.

_Deal._

"Dean," Bobby says, holds out a beading metal can. "You want a beer?"

Dean licks his lips. The right answer here is _yes, _he's pretty sure.

"Yes?"

It's not as delicious as coffee – in fact, it isn't delicious at all. Pamela snickers with glee at his face when he takes the first sip, but the second goes down smoother, and even though it doesn't exactly taste good, it tastes familiar, and he remembers very vividly how he used to fucking love this stuff. And then the line between memory and experience wavers, blurs and disappears. And just like that, he likes beer again.

"So," Pamela says. "I've got a feeling it's not gonna be Dean telling this story. No offense, cutie pie."

Dean debates on how to respond to that and settles for taking a drink of his beer.

"Probably not," Bobby agrees.

"So, Singer," Pamela says, leaning forward with a smirk. "Do that name of yours proud, and sing."

"You want the opera version or the musical theater?" Bobby asks.

"How 'bout a folk song? Short and sweet."

"I can do short," Bobby says. "Don't know about sweet."

"Oh, you're plenty sweet," Pamela says, throws a wink at Dean. "Isn't he?"

"Grape soda," Dean agrees, which is the sweetest thing he can think of on the spot.

Pamela cracks up.

"Were you this funny before the Pit?"

"Way funnier," Dean says wistfully.

"Were you this adorable?"

"Sweetheart, you have no idea," Dean says, the words tripping from his tongue before he stops to think, and Bobby looks surprised and then lets out a bark of laughter.

"You could say he was like a whole different person," Bobby says, and Pamela looks confused when Dean chuckles.

"All right," she says, looking from one to the other. "I don't have to be psychic to know I'm missing something, here."

"Well," Bobby says. "Guess that's as good a place to start the story as any."

And he does.


End file.
